INTER   ARMA 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 
UNIFORM  WITH  THIS  VOLUME 

GOSSIP  IN  A  LIBRARY 
FRENCH  PROFILES 
XVIITH  CENTURY  STUDIES 
CRITICAL  KIT- K ATS 
PORTRAITS  AND  SKETCHES 


NEW  YORK : 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


INTER  ARMA 

BEING    ESSAYS 
WRITTEN    IN   TIME   OF   WAR 


BY 

EDMUND   GOSSE,   C.B, 

/ 

OFFICIER  DE  LA  LEGION  D'HONNEUR 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1916 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


TO 
THEIR   EARLIEST   READER 

HAROLD   COX 

THESE   ESSAYS    ARE   CORDIALLY 
INSCRIBED 


343535 


I  have  to  express  my  best  thanks  to  Messrs. 
Longmans,  the  publishers  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  for  their  courteous  permission  to  reprint 
these  Essays,  all  of  which  have  appeared  in  the 
pages  of  that  periodical. 

E.G. 


PREFACE 

IT  is  probable  that  when  the  terrific  storm,  which 
is  now  blowing  through  almost  every  country  of  the 
world,  has  subsided,  and  when  we  experience  the  full 
results  of  a  cataclysm  so  unparalleled,  the  movement 
of  the  European  mind  during  the  war  may  become  a 
subject  of  philosophic  curiosity.  On  August  i,  1914, 
we  were  wakened  out  of  an  opiate  dream  of  prosperity 
and  peace,  a  dream  in  which  the  images  of  life  recurred 
as  on  a  kind  of  zoetrope,  with  a  lulling  uniformity  of 
repetition.  So  it  was,  so  it  had  been,  so  it  would  ever 
be,  the  only  possible  change  being  that  everybody  must 
grow  richer,  that  life  must  become  more  luxurious,  and 
that  the  orb  of  moral  and  intellectual  experience  must 
wheel  ever  more  and  more  hugely  around  a  secure  and 
radiant  society.  And  then,  with  a  stage  suddenness, 
Berlin  unmasked  itself,  and  the  self-sufficiency  of  Europe 
was  shattered. 

Between  our  old  sleepy  quietude  and  the  inconceivable 
and  immeasurable  novelties  which  await  the  world 
when  all  this  chaos  is  harmonised  again  there  lies  a 
period  of  storm,  a  sort  of  belt  or  stratum,  dividing  the  life 
we  knew  from  the  life  which  we  cannot  yet  so  much  as 
conjecture.  At  first,  many  of  us  thought  that  literature 
would  hold  no  part  in  this  sphere  of  tempest,  that  in 

ix 


x  Preface 

company  with  the  arts  and  sciences  it  would  withdraw 
from  public  view,  and  reappear  only  on  the  wings  of 
peace.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  has  been  with  us, 
patently,  from  the  first,  and  is  now  present  more  than 
ever.  Only  it  has  changed  its  aspect  and  its  character ; 
it  has  largely  modified  its  range  of  subjects.  But  the 
habit  of  writing,  of  expressing  emotion  in  letterpress, 
has  reached  a  point  in  the  history  of  mankind  at  which 
we  may  expect  almost  any  other  form  of  action  to  recede 
before  it.  We  have  discovered  in  the  course  of  the 
present  crisis  that  the  first  thing  people  want  to  do  is  to 
fight,  and  to  prepare  for  fighting,  but  that  the  next  thing 
is  to  write  and  to  arrange  for  writing  to  be  printed. 

The  character  of  what  has  been  written  since  the  war 
began  has  differed  in  proportion  with  the  differences  of 
temperament  in  the  men  and  women  who  have  written 
it.  But  I  think  we  may  notice  one  element  of  unifor- 
mity. No  one  has  been  able  to  speak,  at  all  events 
no  one  has  succeeded  in  being  listened  to,  who  has  not 
in  some  direction  or  another  been  intensely  affected  by 
the  vast  sequence  of  events  in  the  course  of  the  war. 
This  has  been  no  time  for  piping  lullabies  out  of  the  top 
windows  of  the  ivory  tower.  It  is  noticeable  that  a 
thrill  of  personal  excitement  in  the  author  is  necessary 
if  he  is  now  to  reach  an  audience  at  all.  Even  those 
who  think  themselves  justified  in  setting  their  own 
academic  prejudices  and  mechanical  opinions  against 
the  great  unity  of  the  nation's  purpose,  even  these 
men,  whose  action  is  irritating  to  us,  exact  our  attention 
because  they  are  excited.  The  war  affects  them  violently, 


Preface  xi 


although,  as  we  firmly  believe,  wrong-headedly.  They 
are  not  indifferent,  and  it  is  indifference  which  in  this 
belt  of  storm  is  utterly  excluded.  We  cannot  fail  to 
note  that  the  current  literature  of  the  neutral  nations 
has  absolutely  ceased  to  interest  the  Allies,  even  when 
it  discusses  our  political  situation.  Its  Laodicean 
lukewarmness  excludes  it  from  our  attention.  We 
cannot  read  anything  which  does  not  vibrate  with  the 
energy  of  the  moment. 

But  the  man  of  letters  who  is  torn  from  his  customary 
province,  whatever  that  may  be,  and  who  is  drawn  by 
his  emotion  into  the  whirlpool  of  the  hour,  cannot 
change  his  nature,  and  that  emotion  has  to  be  expressed 
in  terms  of  his  own  intellectual  habits.     He  must  be 
careful  not  to  allow  his  zeal  to  drag  him  into  employ- 
ments where  he  will  be,  not  only  of  no  use,  but  perhaps,  in 
his  small  way,  an  encumbrance.    The  author,  untrained 
in  military  affairs,  who  is  led  by  his  ardour  to  criticise 
the  conduct  of  the  allied  generals  in  the  field,  is  apt  to 
cut  a  sorry  figure.     At  best,  he  is  like  the  clown  in  the 
circus,  who  gives  directions  after  the  grooms  have  carried 
them  out.     At  worst,  he  increases  the  public  confusion 
and  adds  his  atom  to  the  distraction  of  disorganised 
opinion.     It  is,   perhaps,  best  for  him  to   pursue  his 
accustomed  lines  of  study,  allowing  all  his  thoughts 
and  views  to  be  saturated  by  the  passionate  interest 
he  takes  in  the  war,  and  so  react,  in  his  own  way  and 
to  the  extent  of  his  own  powers,  against  the  satiety  and 
lassitude  which  the  extraordinary  prolongation  of  the 
struggle  inevitably  produces. 


xii  Preface 

There  is  an  excellent  reason  why  those  who  write 
with  some  seriousness  and  care  should  continue  during 
the  war  to  be  careful  and  serious.  It  has  hardly  been 
enough  observed  that  we  have  sent  out  for  our  national 
defence  in  this  war  a  soldiery  far  more  widely  and  deeply 
educated  than  has  ever  been  the  case  before.  This  is 
true  of  our  French  allies  even  more  fully  than  of  our- 
selves, while  from  my  personal  knowledge  I  can  testify 
that  the  Russian  soldiers  expressly  desire  not  to  have 
"  light  literature  "  or  the  ephemeral  forms  of  fiction 
sent  out  to  them,  but  crave  a  supply  of  solid  and  thought- 
ful, even  of  instructive  books.  Every  author  who  has 
for  many  years  held  the  ear  of  the  public,  within  how- 
ever confined  a  circle,  must  be  aware  of  a  curious,  and 
an  affecting,  fact.  A  large  proportion  of  those  who 
habitually  read  him,  and  whose  minds  have  become 
attuned  to  his,  are  separated  from  him  by  leagues  of 
sea,  and  are  occupied  in  noble  and  unprecedented 
service. 

To  attempt  to  instruct  such  readers  in  a  duty  which 
they  understand  in  far  better  detail  than  he  does  would 
be  ridiculous.  But  in  the  weariness  of  the  interminable 
campaign  their  minds  revert  to  the  mental  occupations 
of  their  old  life.  It  appears  that  they  have,  often, 
much  leisure,  and  books  are  forwarded  easily  and  safely 
to  their  camps.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  booksellers 
tell  me  that  there  has  been  of  late  a  remarkable  export 
of  books  to  our  troops.  I  have  consented  to  the  re- 
publication  of  these  essays,  which  have  appeared 
successively  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  because  they 


Preface  xiii 


represent  the  direction  of  my  own  thoughts  under 
the  excitement  and  anxiety  of  the  war,  and  because 
I  hope  that  some  of  those  readers  who  have  so 
long  been  indulgent  to  me  in  peace,  may  consent  to 
renew  their  conversations  with  me  during  this  inde- 
scribable interval  of  tempest.  I  offer  them  such  a 
causerie  as  might  occupy  a  little  of  our  time  if  I  was 
fortunate  enough  to  meet  them  face  to  face.  And  let 
us  exchange  our  passing  impressions  now,  for  when 
peace  comes  we  shall  all  have  other  things  to  think  of. 

EDMUND  GOSSE. 

March  1916. 


CONTENTS 

PREFACE  ix 

WAR   AND   LITERATURE  i 

THE    UNITY   OF   FRANCE  39 

THE   DESECRATION   OF   FRENCH   MONU- 
MENTS 71 

THE    NAPOLEONIC    WARS    IN    ENGLISH 

POETRY  107 

WAR   POETRY   IN    FRANCE  139 

A   FRENCH    SATIRIST   IN   ENGLAND  173 

THE    NEUTRALITY   OF   SWEDEN  207 

INDEX  243 


xv 


WAR   AND   LITERATURE 


WAR   AND    LITERATURE 

WAR  is  the  great  scavenger  of  thought.  It  is  the 
sovereign  disinfectant,  and  its  red  stream  of  blood  is 
the  Condy's  Fluid  that  cleans  out  the  stagnant  pools 
and  clotted  channels  of  the  intellect.  I  suppose  that 
hardly  any  Englishman  who  is  capable  of  a  renovation 
of  the  mind  has  failed  to  feel  during  the  last  few  weeks 
a  certain  solemn  refreshment  of  the  spirit,  a  humble  and 
mournful  consciousness  that  his  ideals,  his  aims,  his 
hopes  during  our  late  past  years  of  luxury  and  peace 
have  been  founded  on  a  misconception  of  our  aims  as 
a  nation,  of  our  right  to  possess  a  leading  place  in  the 
sunlighted  spaces  of  the  world.  We  have  awakened 
from  an  opium-dream  of  comfort,  of  ease,  of  that 
miserable  poltroonery  of  "  the  sheltered  life."  Our 
wish  for  indulgence  of  every  sort,  our  laxity  of  manners, 
our  wretched  sensitiveness  to  personal  inconvenience, 
these  are  suddenly  lifted  before  us  in  their  true  guise 
as  the  spectres  of  national  decay;  and  we  have  risen 
from  the  lethargy  of  our  dilettantism  to  lay  them,  before 
it  is  too  late,  by  the  flashing  of  the  unsheathed  sword. 
"  Slaughter  is  God's  daughter,"  a  poet  said  a  hundred 
years  ago,  and  that  strange  phrase  of  Coleridge's,  which 
has  been  so  often  ridiculed  by  a  slothful  generation, 
takes  a  new  and  solemn  significance  to  ears  and  eyes 
awakened  at  last  by  the  strong  red  glare  of  reality. 

3 


4       -  ..  Inter  Arma 


But  it  is  impossible,  after  recovery  from  the  first 
violent  shock  to  our  attention,  that  we  should  be  able 
to  preserve  a  philosophical  attitude  in  daily  life.  United 
as  we  happily  are,  purified  as  our  large  conceptions  of 
duty  must  become  under  the  winnowing  fan  of  danger, 
it  is  scarcely  within  the  power  of  those  of  us  who  do 
not  enjoy  the  signal  privilege,  the  envied  consecration, 
of  actual  fighting — it  is  hard  for  those  who  are  spectators, 
however  strenuously  set  in  heart  to  share  the  toils  and 
sufferings  of  their  luckier  and  younger  brethren — not  to 
turn,  by  instinct,  to  the  order  of  ideas  with  which  we 
are,  or  until  now  have  been,  each  one  of  us,  particularly 
engaged.  The  artist  cannot  help  considering  how  the 
duration  of  war  will  affect  the  production  and  the 
appreciation  of  pictures  and  statues  and  music,  since, 
however  wide  and  deep  the  desecration  of  harmony 
may  go,  these  things  must  eventually  rise  again  and 
reappear  above  the  welter.  The  man  of  science  has  to 
put  his  investigations  and  his  experiments  on  one  side, 
yet  the  habit  of  his  brain  is  too  ingrained  to  enable  him 
to  forget  the  relations  of  knowledge  to  life,  or  to  lose 
the  conviction  that  scientific  development  must  pro- 
ceed the  moment  that  the  arresting  violence  of  war  is 
relaxed.  And  the  lover  or  student  of  pure  literature 
needs  accuse  himself  of  no  levity  if  his  mind,  also, 
strains  forward  with  anxiety,  and  compares  with  our 
own  cataclysm  the  catastrophes  of  former  times.  The 
present  pages  will  contain  some  observations,  not  on 
what  is  called  "  the  literature  of  war/'  but  on  the  effect 
of  war  upon  the  lives  of  men  of  letters. 


War  and  Literature 


At  the  outset  of  the  great  contest,  the  attention  of 
all  civilised  nations  was  fixed  upon  the  martyrdom  of 
Belgium,  and  the  destruction  of  her  premier  university 
by  the  impious  Uhlans  gave  the  sympathy  of  the 
world  a  special  acuteness.  A  sort  of  spasm  of  rage 
passed  through  the  hearts  of  all  cultivated  persons  at 
the  news,  at  first  received  with  utter  incredulity,  but 
soon  confirmed,  of  the  wanton  sack  of  Louvain.  From 
the  purely  educational  point  of  view,  though  the  anger 
caused  by  this  act  could  not  be  excessive,  the  regret 
might  be.  The  English  and  French  newspapers,  in 
their  righteous  indignation,  spoke  of  Louvain  as  they 
might  of  Oxford  or  Paris.  But,  for  eighty  years  past 
Louvain  has  not  been  one  of  the  State  universities  of 
Belgium ;  its  educational  importance  has  not  approached, 
nor  been  on  the  same  lines  as,  that  of  Ghent,  or  even  of 
Brussels.  Louvain,  which  in  the  later  middle  ages  was 
the  centre  of  Flemish  learning,  has  never  really  recovered 
from  the  fate  which  befell  it  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  has  been  carried  on  unofficially,  as  a 
Catholic  centre  of  teaching,  by  the  personal  efforts  of 
the  bishops,  although  it  is  true  that  in  comparatively 
recent  years  other  faculties  than  that  of  theology  have 
been  represented  in  it.  The  real  horror  of  the  crime 
at  Louvain  was  aesthetic  rather  than  educational.  The 
library  was  far  richer  than  the  newspapers  have  reported ; 
the  burning  of  its  MSS. — they  included,  I  believe,  an 
inedited  correspondence  of  Erasmus — permanently  im- 
poverishes the  history  of  the  country.  Of  the  artistic 
value  of  the  buildings  destroyed — the  Church  of  St. 


Inter  Arma 


Pierre,  the  Clothmakers'  Halles  of  1317 — the  only 
consolation  we  can  have  is  to  know  that  these  glorious 
relics  were  already  very  largely  "  restored."  So  far  as 
pictures  are  concerned,  one  of  the  most  important  early 
Flemish  masters,  Dierik  Bouts,  seems  to  be  almost 
wiped  out.  A  circumstance  which  should  not  be  over- 
looked, surely,  is  that  these  outrages  on  history  and 
art  were  perpetrated,  not  by  ignorant  savages,  but  by 
highly-educated  officers  amply  instructed  in  the  spiri- 
tual value  of  the  objects  which  they  sacrificed  to  their 
vanity  and  frenzy. 

But,  however  deeply  we  regret  the  abominable 
destruction  of  works  of  art,  the  paralysis  of  living 
intelligence  is  an  even  more  serious  matter.  For  a 
long  while  past  the  astonishing  development  of  the 
Belgian  mind,  as  displayed  in  a  triple  literature,  has 
been  watched  in  Germany,  and  noted  by  German  pro- 
fessors, with  patronising  envy.  It  has  been  observed, 
first  with  surprise  and  then  with  annoyance,  that  a 
little  country  no  larger  than  a  Teutonic  province,  tucked 
into  a  corner  between  the  sea  and  two  great  powers,  a 
country  without  a  dominant  language,  without  a  decisive 
capital,  a  mere  political  expression,  has  since  1880 
ventured  to  display,  in  defiance  of  the  menacing  shadow 
of  Germany,  an  intellectual  activity,  French,  Flemish 
and  Walloon,  in  which  German  kultur  has  found  no 
place.  It  has  not  been  agreeable  to  the  professors  of 
Berlin  to  be  obliged  to  admit  that  the  greatest  poet  of 
Europe  at  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  century  is 
unquestionably  the  noble  Emile  Verhaeren,  a  Fleming 


War  and  Literature 


of  the  Antwerp  district,  writing  consistently  in  French. 
It  has  not  been  to  their  taste  to  watch  the  advance  of 
Maeterlinck,  of  Camille  Lemonnier,  of  Eugene  Demolder, 
writing  in  French,  or  of  the  less  known  and  perhaps 
less  brilliant,  but  numerous  and  enthusiastic,  new  school 
of  authors,  composing  ardently  in  Flemish  and  even  to 
some  extent  in  Walloon. 

This  is  an  aspect  of  the  war  which,  in  our  natural 
absorption  in  vaster  interests  and  more  directly  material 
features,  has  not  yet  received  attention  in  England. 
So  lately  as  1868,  Taine,  in  a  survey  of  intellectual 
conditions  in  the  Low  Countries,  remarked  with  regret 
of  the  Flemings  that  "  ils  ne  peuvent  citer  de  ces  esprits 
createurs  qui  ouvrent  sur  le  monde  de  grandes  vues 
originales,  ou  enchassent  leurs  conceptions  dans  de 
belles  formes  capables  d'un  ascendant  universel."  This 
was  perfectly  true  before  the  great  war  of  1870 ;  it  was 
still  true  a  decade  later.  But  about  the  year  1880  a 
most  remarkable  effort  was  made  by  Belgium  to  redeem 
her  peoples  from  intellectual  sterility,  and  since  that 
time  no  country  of  Europe  has  come  forward  in  literature 
so  rapidly  as  she.  A  generation,  joyously  greeted  at 
home  as  "  La  Jeune  Belgique/'  stimulated  by  the  ideas 
which  were  stirred  in  close  spectators  of  the  last  great 
war,  yet  protected,  in  a  highly-prosperous  country,  from 
the  actual  miseries  and  denudations  of  that  struggle, 
dared  to  inaugurate  a  literary  revolution  against  the 
cut-and-dried  theories  of  their  elders,  and  found  for 
the  first  time  a  fitting  expression  in  verse  and  prose 
for  the  rich,  full-blooded,  highly-coloured  genius  of 


8  Inter  Arma 


Flemish  life.  In  this  movement,  encouraged  by  the 
praise  of  Paris,  undeterred  by  the  sneers  of  Berlin,  the 
pioneers  were  Max  Waller,  who  died  prematurely  in 
1889,  and  the  admirable  poet  of  Louvain,  Albert  Giraud, 
of  whom  I  know  not  whether  he  is  alive  or  dead.  This 
exuberant  school  of  writers,  now  as  broad  as  Rubens 
in  their  joyous  painting  of  life,  now  as  exquisite  as  the 
traceries  of  their  medieval  architecture,  had  been,  up 
to  the  summer  of  1914,  producing  abundant  work  of 
a  kind  not  exactly  paralleled  in  any  other  country. 

In  the  matter  of  speech,  of  course,  the  possession  of  a 
single  language  has  been  denied  to  the  Belgians.  Their 
poets  and  novelists  have  to  take  their  choice  between  a 
tongue  which  is  shared  with  France  or  one  which  is 
almost  identical  with  Dutch.  But  their  genius,  taking 
different  manifestations  from  individual  minds,  is  yet 
national  and  peculiar  to  Belgium.  It  has  been  observed 
that  the  greatest  Belgian  writers  of  to-day  are  Flemings 
by  birth,  education  and  character;  and  even  Maeter- 
linck, who  has  long  inhabited  France,  alternately 
residing  in  Normandy  and  in  Provence,  is  still  a  pure 
Fleming  of  Ghent  in  his  dramas.  There  is  no  modern 
writer  more  national  than  Verhaeren,  and  to  study  his 
poems  is  to  gain  such  an  impression  of  "  Toute  la 
Flandre  "  as  is  to  be  found  nowhere  else.  It  should  be 
interesting  to  note  that  when,  in  1881,  the  "  Jeune 
Beiges,"  in  a  now-famous  manifesto,  announced  their 
intention  of  creating  a  national  literature,  they  were 
met  with  coarse  ridicule  in  Germany,  and  recommended 
to  stick  to  the  prosy  business  of  their  trades.  They 


War  and  Literature 


did  not  heed  the  warning,  and  in  thirty  years  they 
have  enriched  their  country  with  a  fine  harvest  of 
masterpieces. 

This  literature  of  Belgium  has  now  been  trodden  into 
the  mud  by  the  jack-boot  of  the  Prussian.  Let  us  not 
forget,  in  our  legitimate  indignation  at  the  destruction 
of  medieval  relics,  that  Germany  has  committed  in 
Belgium — to  speak  for  the  moment  only  of  Belgium — 
a  still  greater  crime  against  light  and  learning.  We 
have  to  consider  the  conditions  of  mental  life  in  this 
gallant  and  unfortunate  country.  It  is  a  common- 
place to  say  that  Belgium  is  the  battlefield  of  Europe ' 
it  is  more,  it  is  the  graveyard  of  successive  generations 
of  Flemish  aspiration.  Since  the  sixteenth  century, 
when  its  earliest  civilisation  was  withered  by  the  agita- 
tions of  the  Spanish  invader,  until  the  close  of  the  war 
of  1870,  when  the  assurance  of  its  neutrality  gave  it 
at  last  a  basis  of  hope  and  energy,  Belgium  never  had 
breathing  space.  Sacked  by  the  armies  of  Louis  XIV, 
flung  by  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  on  to  the  pikes  of  Austria, 
overrun  and  annexed  by  the  French  in  1795,  torn  and 
tortured  by  European  diplomacy  in  the  days  of  Waterloo, 
not  given,  until  1830,  the  shadow  of  individual  sove- 
reignty, the  insecurity  of  existence  in  Flanders  and 
Brabant  through  all  these  centuries  could  but  detach 
the  minds  of  men  from  the  creation  of  works  of  the 
imagination.  Who  writes  great  poems  when  the  spectres 
of  famine  and  fire  are  prowling  round  his  homestead? 
After  the  last  war  all  this  was  ended,  as  the  Belgians 
thought,  as  all  the  rest  of  Europe,  with  one  sinister  ex- 


io  Inter  Arma 


ception,  believed.  The  neutrality  of  Belgium,  solemnly 
reasserted  and  confirmed,  was  a  sacred  basis  for  the 
intellectual  life  of  the  little  admirable  country  to  build 
upon.  She  was  no  longer  so  fragile,  no  longer  so 
timorous,  and  she  builded  the  beautiful  structure  which 
Germany  has  now  cynically  and  brutally  destroyed. 

When  we  turn  to  the  contemplation  of  our  beloved 
France,  we  have  not,  we  can  never  have,  to  endure  so 
lamentable  a  catastrophe.  However  sorely  tried,  the 
genius  of  the  French  must  recover  from  its  momentary 
misfortunes,  since  it  is  an  essential  portion  of  the 
spiritual  wealth  of  the  world.  As  I  write  these  pages, 
in  the  nightmare  of  events,  with  the  reverberations  of 
the  combat  stunning  the  sense  by  their  rapid  and 
violent  development,  I  cannot  tell  how  the  fortunes  of 
France  may  have  brightened  or  darkened  before  this 
essay  finds  a  reader.  Much  must  be  lost  before  any- 
thing is  gained,  and  we  must  harden  ourselves  to 
remember  with  equanimity,  what  the  Spanish  proverb 
tells  us,  that  often  the  best  of  acorns  is  munched  by 
the  worst  of  swine.  But  of  the  ultimate  salvation  of 
the  genius  of  France,  he  would  be  a  cowardly  pessimist 
who  should  doubt  for  a  moment.  If  the  lovely  provinces 
from  Dunkirk  to  St.  Jean  de  Luz,  from  Brest  to  Menton, 
were  wholly  overrun  by  barbarians,  if  everything  we 
have  honoured  and  delighted  in  were  obscured,  and  if 
the  lamp  lay  shattered  in  the  dust,  still  the  world  would 
not  despair  for  France.  In  the  last  hour  the  horn  of 
Roland  must  sound  from  the  dark  gorge  of  Roncevaux, 
and  angels  must  descend  from  heaven  with  vengeance 


War  and  Literature  1 1 

against  the  enemies  of  France  and  of  God.  In  these 
dreadful  times  we  may  keep  our  spirits  up  by  reading 
the  Chanson  de  Roland  once  again. 

But,  for  the  moment,  the  splendid  activity  of  the 
literature  of  France  is  at  a  standstill.  It  is  poignant 
and  yet  irresistible  to  turn  over  the  last  books  which 
came  from  Paris  in  those  final  weeks  of  July,  books 
that  fluttered  on  to  one's  table  like  unsuspecting  sulphur- 
coloured  butterflies  fallen  from  a  soft  blue  summer  sky. 
I  give  myself  the  sad  pleasure  of  naming  the  latest  that 
came,  and  I  cannot,  in  this  emotional  crisis,  adopt  the 
publicist's  high  impartiality.  They  are  all  the  books 
of  friends,  of  old  and  valued  friends,  workers  serene 
and  busy  in  their  distinguished  environment  when  July 
ended,  and  now  out  of  touch  and  knowledge,  vanished 
from  the  sight  of  affection,  whirled  like  atoms  of  gold-dust 
in  a  sahara-storm  of  war.  Let  me  name  them,  this  final 
quartette  of  noble  books  that  came  to  me  from  France. 
Here  is  the  Voix  d'lonie  of  Francis  Viele-Grifnn,  "  voix 
claire  et  parfaite  et  rieuse,"  a  reissue  in  collected  form  of 
the  recent  poems,  all  on  Greek  subjects,  of  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  poets  of  the  last  generation ;  here  is 
the  Un  Voyage  of  Jacque  Vontade  ("Faemina"),  the 
leading  woman-essayist  of  contemporary  France,  author 
of  that  excellent  Soul  of  the  English  which  has  been 
welcomed  by  so  many  responsive  readers  in  this  country ; 
her  last  journey  was  made  through  Belgium,  Holland, 
and  Germany,  and  her  new  book,  full  of  penetrating 
observation,  is  already  a  curiosity,  since  it  contains  the 
latest  record  of  the  life  of  central  Europe,  in  its  old  un- 


12  Inter  Arma 


reformed  condition,  which  literature  will  offer  us.  Here 
are  two  novels,  the  Romaine  Mirmault  of  M.  Henri  de 
Regnier,  and  Le  Demon  de  Midi  of  M.  Paul  Bourget  (a 
double  butterfly  this,  and  a  blue  one),  which  I  read  and 
re-read  with  an  emotion  quite  unrelated  to  their  purely 
literary  merit,  because  of  the  pictures  they  give  of  that 
beau  pays  de  France  which  slumbered  so  unalarmedly 
in  the  shadow  of  its  poplars  only  a  few  weeks  ago. 

The  sentiment  of  confidence,  of  uninterrupted  peace, 
is  curiously  spread  over  these  four  books,  and  unites 
them,  in  spite  of  their  mutual  unlikeness,  in  one  haze 
of  serenity.  Here  is  the  breathless  hush  before  the 
tempest  breaks.  Peace  breathes  from  out  "  Faemina's  " 
delicate  arid  discriminating  pages.  In  Belgium,  recalling 
the  shock  of  battles  long  ago,  she  asks  "  Comment 
discerner  la  moindre  trace  de  ces  forces  cruelles  dans  la 
placide  finesse,  la  bonhomie  des  visages  ?  "  Even  in 
the  towns  of  Germany,  to  the  attention  of  this  acute 
analyst  of  phenomena,  "  I'instinct  de  batailles  et  de 
meurtre  s'est  endormi,  le  cceur  d'amour  dure  et  veille, 
mele  a  1' atmosphere  dont  il  approfondit  la  reveuse 
serenite."  Marvellous  words  whose  publication  pre- 
ceded by  a  few  days  such  a  magnetic  storm  of  treachery 
and  loathing  as  the  world  had  never  seen  before. 

It  is  impossible  to  form  at  present  any  clear  notion 
of  what  has  become  of  the  various  elements  of  French 
literary  life  in  this  sudden  dislocation  of  the  entire 
social  system.  The  young  men  went  forth  to  fight; 
the  older  ones,  and  the  women-writers  —  dispersed 
through  the  provinces,  or  active  in  benevolence  at  the 


War  and  Literature  1 3 

seat  of  war — almost  immediately  disappeared.  But 
it  is  admissible  to  notice  that  the  very  first  direct 
victim  of  the  war  was  an  eminent  man  of  letters.  In 
ordinary  times,  the  death  of  Jules  Lemaitre  would  have 
attracted  wide  attention  in  every  country  of  the  world ; 
in  France  columns  in  all  the  newspapers  would  have 
been  devoted  to  his  career  and  labours.  Coming,  as  it 
did,  but  two  days  after  the  declaration  of  war,  it  was 
almost  unnoticed  even  in  Paris.  But  "  without  the 
meed  of  some  melodious  tear "  so  beautiful  a  figure 
must  not  be  allowed  to  vanish.  Lemaitre  had  been 
in  failing  health  for  several  months,  and  at  last  he  had 
been  persuaded  to  leave  Paris,  and  retire  to  his  native 
village  of  Tavers,  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Loire,  a 
few  miles  below  Orleans.  Here,  in  the  calm  of  this 
delicious  place,  in  the  house  where  he  was  born,  he  was 
recovering  serenity  and  health,  when  a  newspaper 
announcing  the  declaration  of  war  was  put  into  his 
hands.  He  fainted  at  the  shock,  never  recovered  his 
senses,  and  died  two  days  later  (the  6th  of  August). 
Jules  Lemaitre  was,  if  not  the  greatest,  certainly  the 
most  charming  critic  of  his  age.  No  mind  more  subtle 
than  his  has  ever  been  directed  to  the  interpretation 
of  literature,  and  particularly  of  the  drama.  It  can- 
not be  doubted  that  his  series  of  volumes  called  "  Les 
Contemporains  "  did  more  than  any  other  single  work 
to  formulate  and  regulate  taste  in  Europe  at  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  century;  he  began  their  publication 
when  he  was  only  twenty-five,  and  he  continued  it  for 
ten  years.  Of  his  later  books,  his  poems,  his  plays,  his 


14  Inter  Arma 


enchanting  lectures,  his  essays,  this  is  not  the  place  to 
speak,  but  posterity — if  this  war  with  savages  should 
leave  a  place  for  posterity — will  not  forget  them.  Jules 
Lemaitre,  a  typical  Frenchman  of  the  finest  breed, 
bland  and  gracious,  but  with  a  capacity  for  sternness, 
was,  like  the  Cardinal  in  Henry  VIII — 

"  a  scholar,  and  a  right  good  one, 
Exceeding  wise,  fair-spoken  and  persuading; 
Lofty  and  sour  to  them  that  lov'd  him  not, 
But  to  those  men  who  sought  him,  sweet  as  summer." 

The  only  previous  catastrophe  which  can  be  com- 
pared with  the  present  war,  in  its  relation  to  the  intel- 
lectual life,  is  that  of  1870-1.  To  realise  faintly  what 
is  now  the  condition  of  literature  in  France  we  ought 
to  have  before  us  the  parallel  of  what  happened  then. 
But  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  French  do  not  seem 
to  have  made  any  special  record  of  this  side  of  the 
matter;  at  all  events,  I  have  been  unable,  among  the 
almost  innumerable  memoirs  of  the  war  of  1870,  to 
find  one  which  confines  itself,  or  deals  expressly  with, 
the  disturbance  in  literature  and  the  fine  arts.  Lavisse 
has  a  very  just  remark  about  the  condition  in  the 
autumn  of  that  year;  "  Toute  la  vie  de  la  France,"  he 
says,  "  se  taisait."  To  break  this  silence,  which  still 
subsists,  we  must  grope  about  among  individual  bio- 
graphies, and  bring  forth  such  evidence  as  may  be 
revealed,  as  it  were  under  the  breath  of  the  speaker, 
or  in  an  agonised  aside.  It  has  seemed  appropriate, 
at  this  moment,  to  describe — and  partly  from  unpub- 
lished sources — how  the  calamities  which  followed  Sedan, 


War  and  Literature  15 

and  particularly  the  siege  of  Paris,  affected  some  of 
the  most  famous  writers  of  the  time.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  our  brethren  in  France  have  suffered  already, 
and  will  increasingly  suffer,  the  same  disabilities  and 
injuries  and  sorrows.  To  know  how  the  blow  fell  upon 
their  fathers  may  help  us  a  little  to  appreciate  how  it 
is  falling  upon  them. 

Some  days  before  September  4,  1870,  Victor  Hugo 
broke  the  chain  of  his  long  exile,  and  came  back  to 
Paris,  where  he  was  met  at  the  railway  station  by 
shouting  crowds.  He  addressed  a  rather  pompous  pro- 
clamation to  the  German  nation,  of  which,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  the  Prussians  took  not  the  slightest  notice. 
Hugo  then  applied  himself  to  bringing  out  a  new  edition 
of  Les  Chdtiments,  and  it  is  worth  noting  that  this  was 
the  principal,  indeed  the  only,  literary  success  of  the 
season.  There  were  sold  100,000  copies  of  these  inflam- 
matory and  pathetic  poems,  which  were  distributed 
about  as  commodities  rather  than  as  books.  By  the 
end  of  October  hawkers  from  ambulatory  stalls  were 
selling  piles  of  Les  Chdtiments  among  pieces  of  cocoa- 
nut,  flannel  vests,  and  packets  of  chocolate.  Victor 
Hugo  gave  the  entire  profits  to  the  provision  of  cannon 
and  ambulances;  the  principal  pieces  were  recited,  by 
leading  actors  and  actresses,  in  the  squares  of  Paris. 
His  restlessness  became  great ;  he  went  to  Brussels, 
back  to  Paris,  made  excursions  to  the  provinces,  even, 
for  a  short  time,  entirely  unrecognised,  lodged  incognito 
in  London.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  Hugo  wrote  two 
large  volumes  during  the  height  of  the  war — L'Annee 


1 6  Inter  Arma 


Terrible,  much  overpraised  by  Swinburne,  and  Actes  et 
Paroles,  which  is  simply  a  collection  of  all  the  appeals, 
speeches,  letters,  and  manifestos  which  he  had  written 
since  the  proclamation  of  the  Republic.  But  neither 
was  published  until  the  war  was  well  over.  The  revival 
of  Ruy-Blas  at  the  Odeon  was  hailed  as  marking  the 
return  of  legitimate  drama;  we  may  notice  that  this 
took  place  in  February  1872,  eighteen  months  after  the 
war  broke  out. 

Most  of  the  elderly  authors  were  struck  dumb  with 
consternation,  and  either  died  before  the  Germans  left 
France,  or  remained  in  a  state  of  suspended  animation. 
The  Nestor  of  them  all,  Guizot,  was  just  eighty-three 
when  war  was  declared,  and  he  was  totally  unprepared 
for  it.  He  had  been  anticipating  a  sort  of  millennium, 
and  suddenly  all  his  optimism  fell  from  him.  He  was 
at  his  country  house  in  Normandy,  and  he  took  to  his 
bed,  a  wise  thing  for  a  very  old  man  to  do.  There, 
while  he  lay  and  rested,  his  energy  slowly  came  back 
to  him  and,  weak  as  he  was,  he  determined  to  do 
what  he  could.  He  wrote  two  famous  letters,  one  to 
Mr.  Gladstone,  the  other  to  Samuel  Wilberforce,  Bishop 
of  Winchester,  fervently  praying  for  the  intervention  of 
England.  When  no  answer  came,  or  lukewarm  expres- 
sions of  civility  which  were  worse  than  none,  energy 
once  more  seized  the  noble  old  Guizot.  He  rose  from 
his  bed  and  came  up  to  Versailles,  where  he  begged 
Thiers  so  insistently  to  convoke  a  synod  of  the  Pro- 
testant churches  that  this  was  done,  and  Guizot  pre- 
sided. The  vortex  of  things  whirled  him  back  to 


War  and  Literature  17 

Normandy,  and  there  he  endured  the  shock  of  the 
death  of  one  friend  after  another,  even  at  last  that  of 
his  devoted  daughter,  Mme.  de  Cornelis  de  Witt.  With 
intrepid  persistency  he  contrived  to  finish  the  fourth 
volume  of  his  great  history  of  France,  and  his  last 
written  words  were  "  Je  laisse  le  monde  bien  trouble. 
Comment  renaitra-t-il  ?  Je  1'ignore,  mais  j'y  crois. 
Dites-le,  je  vous  prie,  a  mes  amis;  je  n'aime  pas  a  les 
savoir  decourages."  And  his  wonderful  heroic  optimism 
returned,  even  in  the  hour  of  dissolution,  for,  on  the 
day  he  died  (September  12,  1874),  he  lifted  himself  on 
his  pillows,  with  shining  eyes  called  his  attendant  to 
him,  and  whispered  "  Personne  n'en  est  plus  sur  que 
moi."  What  Guizot  was  so  sure  of  was  the  revival  of 
civilisation,  the  renewal  of  piety  and  pity.  Shall  we 
to-day  be  less  confident  than  he? 

Alexandre  Dumas  pere  was  in  the  precise  situation  in 
which  it  would  be  most  unfortunate  for  an  old  man  to 
be  discovered  by  the  thunderbolt  of  ill-fortune.  Worn 
out  with  his  colossal  work,  extravagant  in  his  whole 
conception  of  life,  Dumas  had  made  no  species  of 
provision  for  the  future,  and  was  immediately  and 
completely  ruined  by  the  war.  He  retired  to  his  son's 
house  at  Paris,  where  he  fell  into  a  sort  of  stupor. 
He  was  utterly  tired  out,  and  when  those  around  him 
asked  whether  it  would  not  rouse  him  from  his  gloom 
to  write  a  little,  the  old  novelist  replied,  "  Oh  !  no, 
never  again."  Almost  his  last  words  were  :  "  They  say 
I  have  been  a  spendthrift.  But  I  came  to  Paris  with 
twenty  francs,  and,"  pointing  to  his  last  piece  of  gold 


1 8  Inter  Arma 


on  the  mantelpiece,  "  I  have  kept  them.  There  they 
are  !  "  He  died  on  December  6,  in  the  darkest  hour 
of  the  defeat  of  the  army  of  the  Loire  and  the  recapture 
of  Orleans.  The  German  occupation  of  the  country 
made  it  impossible  to  give  his  body  public  burial  till 
February  1871,  when  the  family  took  the  coffin  to 
Villars-Cotterets,  his  birthplace.  When  the  death  of 
Dumas  was  officially  announced  to  the  French  Academy 
a  thing  happened  which  had  not  happened  since  the 
great  Revolution — the  election  of  a  successor  could  not 
take  place  because  only  thirteen  of  the  Academicians 
could  be  communicated  with,  no  election  being  valid 
unless  more  than  twenty  take  part  in  it. 

The  behaviour  of  individual  men  of  letters,  of  the 
elder  generation,  depended,  of  course,  upon  their  tem- 
perament. Jules  Janin,  who  had  just  been  made  an 
Academician,  in  the  room  of  Sainte  Beuve,  gave  way 
to  the  counsels  of  despair;  he  abandoned  literature,  his 
friends,  and  the  world.  With  a  pet  parrot  in  a  cage 
as  sole  companion,  he  withdrew  to  his  chalet  as  soon 
as  the  Germans  approached  Paris,  and  came  forth  no 
more.  Littre,  on  the  other  hand,  displayed  an  admirable 
calm.  When  the  enemy  threatened  Paris  in  September 
1870,  Littre  proposed  to  remain,  but  his  friends  obliged 
him  to  retire  to  Bordeaux,  where  Gambetta,  in  January, 
contrived  to  found  a  chair  of  history  and  geography 
for  his  support.  He  sat,  as  a  republican,  as  Deputy 
for  the  Seine  in  the  National  Assembly,  and  although 
he  was  unable  to  speak  in  public,  the  Government 
availed  themselves  to  their  great  advantage  of  his 


War  and  Literature  19 

vigorous  and  weighty  reports.  Littre  was  not  merely 
a  prince  among  linguists,  but  an  independent  and 
liberal  thinker,  who  kept  up  the  courage  of  others  by 
wise  and  prudent  counsel.  A  different  fate  attended  a 
different  man  when  Jules  Sandeau,  who  had  long  been 
the  petted  librarian  of  the  imperial  palace  of  St.  Cloud, 
was  doomed  to  watch  the  conflagration  of  both  palace 
and  library.  He  was  suddenly  turned  adrift  with  a 
pension  of  two  thousand  francs  a  year.  Sandeau  was 
perhaps  the  earliest  of  the  great  French  writers  to 
return  to  work,  for  he  published  his  last  and  worst 
novel,  La  Roche  au%  Mouettes,  before  the  close  of  1871. 
Younger  men,  who  were  nevertheless  too  old  to  be 
sent  out  to  fight,  suffered  more  than  their  elders  or 
juniors,  and  doubtless  will  always,  in  like  occasion, 
suffer  most.  The  instance  of  Flaubert  is  tragic  in  the 
extreme.  He  had  always  looked  upon  war  with  detesta- 
tion, and  to  the  last  he  refused  to  believe  that  it  was 
imminent.  Flaubert  thought  that  the  whole  of  Europe 
should  be  ruled  by  one  beneficent  tyrant,  specially  pre- 
occupied with  the  protection  of  art  and  letters.  When 
the  Germans  entered  France,  he  was  at  Audemer,  feed- 
ing his  soul  with  the  husks  of  empty  hope  and  vain 
illusion.  When  Rouen  was  occupied  he  was  seized  with 
hysteric  frenzy,  and  gathering  together  all  his  books, 
his  letters,  his  manuscripts,  he  burned  them.  Prussian 
soldiers  were  billeted  on  his  house,  and  as  they  entered, 
Flaubert  collapsed  in  a  fit  of  epilepsy  which  was  the 
worst  he  had  ever  endured,  and  which  threatened  at 
first  to  be  fatal.  They  moved  him  to  Paris,  and  he 


20  Inter  Arma 


recovered  a  measure  of  health;  it  is  characteristic  that 
even  in  his  anger  and  his  despair,  literature  never  ceased 
to  occupy  the  thoughts  of  Flaubert.  But  it  took  a 
sombre  colour  of  its  own,  quite  unlike  any  aspect  with 
which  it  had  faced  him  before.  He  wanted  to  write 
novels  about  Sedan,  and  dramas  about  the  occupation 
of  Normandy.  He  proposed  to  add  a  second  part  to 
V Education  Sentimentale,  bringing  it  down  to  date.  He 
wandered  among  the  smoking  ruins  of  the  Commune, 
murmuring  "  Quelles  brutes  !  quelles  brutes  !  "  and 
rehearsing  the  sentences  in  which  he  would  immortalise 
their  crimes. 

Theophile  Gautier,  too,  had  always  dreaded  every 
form  of  political  and  military  disturbance.  His  attitude 
is  perhaps  the  most  pathetic  that  we  discern,  possibly 
because  its  pathos  was  so  obvious  at  the  time.  Gautier, 
the  most  beloved  writer  of  his  age,  a  glowing  exponent 
of  the  pure  spirit  of  beauty,  not  to  be  thought  of  in 
connexion  with  darkness  or  ugliness  or  dejection, 
"  being,"  as  Swinburne  said  of  him,  "  so  near  the 
sun-god's  face,"  had  suffered  cruelly  in  previous  dis- 
tractions, and  particularly  in  those  of  1848.  He  was 
a  gorgeous  heliconian  lepidopter  to  whom  a  drop  of 
rain  was  ruin.  Poor  Gautier,  when  the  Prussians 
formed  round  Paris,  said — 

"  If  I  knew  an  honest  Turk  who  loved  French  verses, 
I  would  settle  in  his  house  at  Constantinople :  in  exchange 
for  a  few  sonnets  to  the  glory  of  the  Prophet,  I  would 
beg  for  a  dish  of  pilaw  to  eat,  a  tchibouck  to  smoke,  a 


War  and  Literature  21 

carpet  to  lie  down  upon,  and  I  would  try  to  forget  that 
I  was  born  into  the  races  of  the  West,  those  races  that 
murder  and  burn  and  steal,  and  then  turn  and  say  '  I 
am  civilisation  ! ' 

Presently,  he  longed  to  lie  down,  not  on  a  carpet  but 
on  the  pavement  of  the  street,  and  die.  There  was  a 
legend  that  he  "  retired  into  his  tower  of  ivory,"  but 
Gautier  had  no  such  retreat.  He  was  assailed  by  the 
blackness  of  poverty,  and  Du  Camp  describes  meeting 
him  during  the  siege,  dragging  his  limbs,  prematurely 
old,  his  magnificent  eyes  veiled  under  their  puffed  eye- 
lids, and  answering,  when  asked  how  he  was,  "  Saturated 
with  horror  !  " 

A  group  of  some  of  the  most  interesting  men  of  letters 
in  France  had  been  in  the  habit  of  dining  together  at 
the  Cafe  Brebant,  and  it  appears  from  diaries  of  the 
time,  and  particularly  from  the  Journal  of  Edmond  de 
Goncourt,  that  they  kept  up  this  practice  through  the 
siege  and  well  on  into  the  excesses  of  the  Commune. 
Here  Renan,  Paul  de  St.  Victor,  and  Berthelot  were 
constant  attendants,  and  others,  now  less  famous,  who 
enjoyed  some  private  means  and  were  not  entirely 
dependent  on  their  pen  for  a  dinner.  We  have  strange 
glimpses  of  their  melancholy  symposia :  St.  Victor 
wailing  out  his  apocalyptical  visions  of  Death  on  the 
pale  horse  galloping  over  the  fields  of  France,  Renan 
throwing  his  arms  up  to  heaven  and  quoting  long 
passages  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  Goncourt  cynically 
exciting  the  others  to  fury  by  his  ironies,  Berthelot 


22  Inter  Arma 


losing  himself  in  ingenious  theories  of  what  chemistry 
might  do  to  annihilate  the  German  army  with  explosives 
and  miasmas  hitherto  undreamed  of  by  mankind. 
Across  this  lugubrious  company  we  see  passing  the 
strange  figure  of  Zola,  occupied  with  the  plan  of  a 
series  of  novels,  "  an  epic  in  ten  volumes,"  on  the  life 
of  a  modern  family  of  France — a  scheme  which  worked 
itself  out  eventually,  in  many  volumes  more  than  ten, 
as  the  famous  "  Rougon-Macquart "  series.  But  Zola, 
who  was  much  younger  than  the  rest,  is  the  only  one  of 
these  men  of  letters  who  is  displayed  to  us  as  continu- 
ously involved  in  literary  ambition.  For  the  rest,  the 
horrible  months,  the  interminable,  desolated,  mutilated 
months,  were  mere  tracts  of  intellectual  wilderness. 

In  this  desert  there  were  some  oases  of  confidence 
and  courage.  It  is,  indeed,  curious  to  note  the  apparent 
contradictions  which  we  meet  with  in  the  records  of 
that  time.  On  one  hand  we  seem  to  see  a  complete 
paralysis  of  social  order  and  habit ;  on  the  other,  within 
the  same  stricken  city  of  Paris,  life  appears  following 
its  usual  course  with  singular  docility.  In  contrast  to 
the  attitude  of  Gautier  and  Flaubert,  we  must  observe 
that  of  Gaston  Paris,  who  had  just  been  elected  to  the 
Chair  of  Romance  Languages  at  the  College  de  France, 
and  who  had  announced  his  first  lectures  for  the  autumn 
and  winter  of  1870.  He  was  urged  to  abandon  them, 
but  he  refused,  and,  wonderful  to  relate,  they  were 
largely  attended.  A  distinguished  French  writer,  who 
was  a  youth  at  that  time,  and  an  auditor  of  these 
lectures,  tells  me  that  the  noble  calm  of  Gaston  Paris, 


War  and  Literature  23 

his  serene  enthusiasm  for  learning,  and  his  skill  in 
illustrating  by  medieval  examples  the  unconquerable 
genius  of  France,  had  a  miraculous  effect  in  comforting 
and  strengthening  young  men  through  those  sinister 
weeks  of  depression. 

The  conditions  of  life  during  the  war  of  1870-1  are 
reflected  in  several  books  which  are  little  known  in 
England,  and  which  have  a  vivid  and  poignant  interest 
for  us  to-day.  The  poet  and  academician,  Victor  de 
Laprade,  published  in  1872  a  volume  written  "  Pendant 
la  Guerre,"  which  is  well  worthy  of  resuscitation. 
Laprade,  however,  gives  the  provincial  and  not  the 
Parisian  point  of  view,  and  his  observations  were  made 
in  Lyons,  where,  having  suffered  heavily  under  the 
Empire  for  the  independence  of  his  political  utterances, 
he  was  living  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  in  honourable 
seclusion.  But  a  still  more  valuable  work — and  that, 
perhaps,  which  gives  the  very  best  impression  of  the 
mental  disturbance  caused  by  the  agitations  of  hope 
and  fear  during  the  invasion — is  Une  Famille  pendant 
la  Guerre,  which  consists  of  letters  supposed  to  be 
written,  and  doubtless  in  the  main  really  written,  from 
country  villages  in  different  parts  of  the  invaded  pro- 
vinces during  the  whole  time  that  the  Germans  were 
in  France.  This  book  was  written  by  a  young  woman 
of  great  penetration  of  mind,  whose  name  was  Boissonas. 
It  was  not  printed  until  1873,  when  it  enjoyed  a  wide 
success,  but  it  has  long  been  out  of  print.  It  would 
be  a  very  useful  step  for  some  publisher  now  to  take 
to  reissue  these  admirable  impressions. 


24  Inter  Arma 


The  bewilderment  of  spirit,  the  species  of  hallucination 
into  which  intellectual  people,  doomed  to  inaction,  fell 
is  well  illustrated  by  an  incident  which  I  owe  to  my 
valued  friend,  his  Excellency  the  French  Ambassador  in 
Washington.  It  refers  to  Sully  Prudhomme,  who  was 
the  youngest  hope  of  French  poetry  when  the  war  broke 
out  in  1870.  Sully  Prudhomme  had  greatly  desired  to 
fight,  but  the  state  of  his  health  made  it  impossible. 
He  remained  in  Paris,  a  prey  almost  to  despair.  Gaston 
Paris,  who  was  Sully  Prudhomme's  greatest  friend,  told 
M.  Jusserand  that  during  the  siege  of  Paris  the  poet 
was  crossing  the  Place  St.  Augustin  when  he  lost  his 
way.  He  asked  a  man  to  guide  him  and  was  shown 
his  direction,  but  falling  again  immediately  into  a 
lugubrious  reverie  he  lost  it  before  leaving  the  Place. 
He  was  obliged  to  ask  his  way  once  more,  but  unfortu- 
nately he  did  so  of  the  very  man  he  had  asked  originally, 
who  had  stopped  there  watching  the  odd  movements 
of  the  poet.  This  man,  now  assured  that  all  was  wrong, 
called  out  "  A  spy  !  a  spy  !  "  A  crowd  gathered,  two 
gendarmes  hurried  up,  and  Sully  Prudhomme  was  hustled 
very  roughly  a  long  way  off  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Once 
there,  explanations  were  easy,  and  full  apologies  were 
tendered  to  the  already-famous  author  of  Les  Epreuves 
and  Les  Solitudes.  The  authorities  courteously  asked 
what  they  could  do  to  express  their  grief  at  50  wretched 
a  mistake.  "Only  this,"  Sully  Prudhomme  replied; 
"  let  me  go  back  to  the  Place  St.  Augustin  arm-in-arm 
with  the  same  two  gendarmes  who  brought  me  hither." 

Sully  Prudhomme  was  one  of  the  few  pure  men  of 


War  and  Literature  25 

letters  in  whom  the  creative  imagination  was  not 
paralysed  during  the  war.  He  wrote  a  little  sheaf  of 
pieces  called  Impressions  de  la  Guerre,  which  belong  to 
the  spring  of  1871,  and  these  bear  upon  them,  in  their 
imperfection,  signs  of  the  intense  and  painful  agitation 
of  the  author's  mind.  As  often  occurs  in  like  occasions, 
the  emotion  in  the  poet's  brain  was  too  violent  and  too 
immediate  to  allow  of  due  artistic  expression.  At  such 
times,  little  is  effective  in  poetry  save  the  denunciations 
of  unmeasured  anger.  But  some  of  Sully  Prudhomme's 
tender  fancies  are  very  pathetic.  He  addresses  the 
blossoms  which  sprang  from  the  battlefields  of  the 
north  of  France  in  the  April  of  1871  :  he  reproaches 
these  fleurs  de  sang  with  their  careless  beauty — 

"  O  fleurs,  de  vos  tuniques  neuves 

Refermez  tristement  les  plis  : 
Ne  vous  sentez-vous  pas  les  veuves 
Des  jeunes  coeurs  ensevelis  ? 

A  nos  malheurs  indifferents, 

Vous  vous  etalez  sans  remords  : 

Fleurs  de  France,  un  peu  nos  parents, 
Vous  devriez  pleurer  nos  morts." 

Somebody,  in  the  course  of  1871,  ventured  to  rally 
Victor  Hugo  on  the  relaxation  of  his  zeal  for  the  form 
of  government  which  he  had  so  long  and  so  enthusi- 
astically recommended.  The  poet  admitted  that  the 
Commune  had,  for  the  time  at  least,  taken  away  his 
appetite  for  republics.  Much  more  positive  injury  was 
done  to  art  and  literature  by  the  Gardes  Nationaux 
than  by  the  Germans,  and  this  is  a  fact  which  must 


26  Inter  Arma 


ever  be  galling  to  French  self-respect.  We  may  almost 
set  against  the  crime  of  Louvain  the  destruction  of  the 
Library  of  the  Louvre,  the  old  Bibliotheque  du  Roi. 
Under  the  Commune  the  thirty  volumes  of  the  Tresor 
de  Noailles,  the  seven  hundred  volumes  of  the  Gillet  and 
Saint  Genis  collections,  perished  by  fire.  The  wretches 
poured  petroleum  on  the  book-shelves,  and  soaked  the 
bundles  of  priceless  manuscripts;  then  they  set  flame 
to  the  whole  and  fled.  Out  of  the  neighbouring  windows 
of  the  Louvre,  the  custodians  gazed  with  blanched 
faces,  and  asked  one  another  "  Will  it  be  our  turn 
next?  "  According  to  a  story  which  lacks  confirma- 
tion, the  blowing-up  of  Notre  Dame  had  been  decided 
upon  by  the  Communard  Government,  and  was  only 
prevented  by  the  exertions  of  the  young  poet,  Verlaine, 
who  had  been  made  Chef  de  Bureau  de  la  Presse.  These 
were  not  times  in  which  the  intellectual  part  of  Paris 
could  keep  calm  from  one  hour  to  another. 

During  the  siege,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
every  brain  was  occupied  with  the  nightmare  caused 
by  lack  of  food.  This  alone  made  mental  concentration 
impossible.  There  is  no  more  curious  evidence  remain- 
ing than  is  given  in  some  verses  written  by  Victor  Hugo, 
in  a  balloon-epistle,  on  January  10,  1871.  It  may  not 
be  poetry,  but  it  is  amazingly  vivid — 

"  Nous  mangeons  du  cheval,  du  rat,  de  1'ours,  de  1'ane. 
Paris  est  si  bien  pris,  cerne,  mure,  noue, 
Garde,  que  notre  ventre  est  1'arche  de  Noe; 
Dans  nos  flancs  toute  bete,  honnete  ou  mal-famee, 
Penetre,  et  chien  et  chat,  le  mammon,  le  pygmee, 
Tout  entre,  et  la  souris  rencontre  1'elephant." 


War  and  Literature  27 

Prussia,  the  gigantic  tigress,  held  Paris  in  her  claws, 
and  was  biting  the  great  palpitating  heart  of  France, 
and  the  form  her  death-stroke  took  was  starvation. 
There  was  no  exaggeration  in  Hugo's  catalogue  of  foods. 
One  night,  at  Brebant's,  what  was  called  a  roast  saddle 
of  mutton  was  served  to  the  men  of  letters.  It  was 
admirably  cooked,  but  a  waiter  admitted  that  it  was 
really  the  side  of  a  Newfoundland  dog.  The  hyper- 
sensitive Renan,  who  had  swallowed  a  mouthful,  turned 
green  and  rushed  from  the  table;  the  rest,  more  philo- 
sophical, decided  that  whatever  the  mutton  might  be 
zoologically,  it  was  delicious;  and  they  finished  the 
"  saddle."  Ingenious  ideas  about  food  and  cooking 
more  and  more  absorbed  their  thoughts  as  the  siege 
progressed. 

The  element  of  noise,  again,  recurs  incessantly  in  the 
memoirs  of  the  war,  and  this  produced  in  the  minds  of 
sensitive  and  imaginative  persons  a  perpetual  agitation. 
The  constant  riot  of  explosions  and  detonations,  rumb- 
lings and  tramplings,  made  all  effort  to  sustain  thought 
impossible.  The  attention  was  at  every  moment  terrified 
and  distracted.  Again,  Paris  was  burning  on  both 
sides,  "  1'eternel  incendie  "  of  St.  Cloud  was  followed 
by  the  endless  conflagration  of  Auteuil.  The  artillery 
of  the  Germans,  and  then  that  of  the  Versaillais,  shook 
the  houses  to  their  foundations  in  perpetual  earth- 
quakes, so  that  pictures  and  bric-a-brac  had  to  be  put 
in  cellars,  while  books  were  shaken  off  their  shelves, 
and  lay  in  dog's-eared  heaps  along  the  floors.  It  was 
not  until  the  fall  of  the  Commune  and  the  resumption 


28  Inter  Arma 


of  something  like  steady  government,  that  Paris  began 
to  recover  from  these  distracting  conditions,  and  accord- 
ingly it  is  not  until  after  June  1871  that  we  begin  to 
find  literature  reasserting  itself,  and  pushing  frail  shoots 
up  from  under  the  deep  layer  of  dust  and  scoria  that 
the  war  had  spread  over  it. 

Then  it  was  that,  as  Theodore  de  Banville  has  assured 
us,  Gautier,  who  had  been  lying  on  his  bed  every  day 
from  morning  to  night,  dozing,  and  reading  over  and 
over  again  the  same  classic  verses,  woke  up  in  his  narrow 
bare  bedroom  in  the  Rue  de  Beaune  and  began  to  write 
Emaux  et  Camees  once  more.  Then  it  was  that  Flaubert, 
over  whom  the  cataclysm  seemed  to  have  passed  without 
altering  an  iota  in  his  character  or  habits,  brought  out 
the  MS.  of  La  Tentation  de  Saint  Antoine  and  became 
absorbed  in  its  elaboration.  But  it  was  not  until 
December  that  Edmond  de  Goncourt — who  may  be 
taken  as  the  purest  type  of  the  normal  man  of  letters, 
entirely  devoted  to  the  profession  of  literature,  but  not, 
like  Flaubert  and  Gautier,  detached  from  all  other 
interests — that  Goncourt  was  able  to  settle  his  mind 
to  the  fabrication  of  a  novel.  We  may  say  that  the 
war  caused  a  suspension  in  France  of  all  literary  com- 
position of  the  higher  kind  during  sixteen  or  seventeen 
months. 

But  it  is  important  to  observe  that  this  was  a  sus- 
pension, not  a  determination.  On  the  face  of  a  history 
of  French  literature  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  war 
of  1870-1  makes  scarcely  a  scar.  Even  in  the  bio- 
graphies of  men  of  letters  it  is  discovered  only  as  a 


War  and  Literature  29 

halting-place,  not  as  a  break  in  continuity.  A  long 
illness  or  a  voyage  round  the  world  would  compete  with 
the  war  of  1870-1  in  the  mark  it  might  make  on  the 
continuous  production  of  a  French  poet  of  that  age. 
Those  who  had  private  resources  withdrew  very  care- 
fully to  their  shelters,  and  sucked  their  paws  like  bears 
till  the  long  winter  of  their  discontent  was  over.  In 
many  cases  the  war  stored  up  their  talents,  and  con- 
centrated their  powers.  In  particular,  it  intensified 
their  capacities.  People  who  had  loved  the  fatherland 
coldly  in  times  of  piping  peace,  blew  the  coals  of  their 
hearts  up  into  a  living  flame,  and  the  enchantment  of 
France  reasserted  itself.  When  the  enemy  was  gone, 
they  took  up  their  work,  on  the  old  lines,  but  with 
threefold  and  fourfold  zeal.  The  temper  of  French 
imaginative  literature  is  clearly  displayed  in  a  fine 
series  of  sonnets  by  Sully  Prudhomme,  written  some 
years  later,  called  La  France  ;  space  does  not  lend  itself 
here  to  long  quotation,  or  I  would  print  in  this  con- 
nexion that  which  begins  :  "  Vous  qui,  des  beaux  loisirs 
empruntant  les  beaux  noms."  Germany  strove  to 
quench  the  inner  flame  on  the  altar  of  French  genius, 
and  she  hardly  succeeded  in  extinguishing  for  the 
moment  a  few  candles  at  the  church-door. 

When  we  turn  to  conditions  in  our  own  country,  we 
must  remember  that  the  effect  of  such  a  war  as  we  are 
conducting  is  not  comparable  with  that  produced  in 
France  by  the  invasion  of  1870.  If  we  were,  indeed, 
to  be  successfully  invaded,  the  entire  outlook  of  litera- 
ture in  England  would  be  modified  to  a  degree  which 


30  Inter  Arma 


it  is  now  useless  to  attempt  to  foresee.  We  have  a 
solemn  confidence  in  our  navy,  and  we  do  not  allow 
ourselves  to  imagine  so  great  a  calamity  as  its  defeat. 
There  is,  therefore,  no  reasonable  fear  of  such  a  cata- 
strophic cessation  of  all  literary  activity  as  was  produced 
in  France  early  in  the  month  of  August,  1914.  But  the 
absorption  of  interest,  concentrated  on  the  action  of  the 
Allies  and  on  nothing  else,  had  the  effect  of  closing  down 
as  immediately,  although  not  so  violently  or  completely, 
the  traffic  in  books  in  London.  In  Paris,  during  the 
first  weeks  of  this  war,  new  works  by  popular  authors 
which  had  been  selling  in  very  large  numbers,  died 
finally  and  suddenly.  For  instance,  the  novel  by 
M.  Paul  Bourget — Le  Demon  de  Midi,  of  which  I  have 
spoken — had  been  selling  at  the  rate  of  several  hundreds 
a  day.  After  the  declaration  of  war,  as  I  am  told, 
not  one  single  further  copy  was  bought.  If  we  take 
into  consideration  the  fact  that  August  and  September 
are  the  months  during  which  the  sale  of  books  in  England 
is  normally  at  its  lowest,  it  may  be  that  the  decline, 
though  rapid,  was  not  abrupt.  A  country  whose  soil 
is  not  in  imminent  danger  must  always  be  slower  to 
realise  its  position  than  a  country  actually  invaded. 

Nor  has  anything  yet  happened  which  should  com- 
pletely cut  off  the  stream  of  current  literature.  It  will 
be  to  the  interest  of  the  publishers,  even  at  a  greatly 
diminished  profit,  to  keep  that  stream  flowing  as  long 
as  they  can,  in  order  to  float  upon  it  the  works  which 
they  have  paid  for,  printed  and  bound,  ready  for  the 
autumn  season  which  they  expected.  Of  these  it  is 


War  and  Literature  31 

reasonable  to  expect  that  a  great  many  will  in  due 
course  succeed  in  being  issued,  and  that  every  attempt 
will  be  made  to  secure  for  them  what  distracted  atten- 
tion a  public  exercised  in  other  directions  can  possibly 
be  induced  to  spare.  It  is  even  conceivable  that  a 
certain  animation  of  the  book-trade  may  display  itself 
in  the  late  autumn,  and  an  appearance  of  vitality  be 
evident.  How  it  is  to  be  evinced  in  a  world  from  which 
the  publisher's  advertisement  and  the  book-review  have 
alike  vanished,  it  is  rather  hard  to  say.  But  what  we 
must  really  face  is  the  fact  that  this  harvest  of  volumes, 
be  it  what  it  may,  will  mark  the  end  of  what  is  called 
"  current  literature,"  for  the  remaining  duration  of  the 
war.  There  can  be  no  aftermath,  we  can  aspire  to  no 
revival.  The  book  which  does  not  deal  directly  and 
crudely  with  the  complexities  of  warfare  and  the  various 
branches  of  strategy,  will,  from  Christmas  onwards,  not 
be  published  at  all. 

Authors,  therefore,  if  they  have  not  the  privilege  of 
fighting,  or  of  otherwise  taking  active  part  in  the 
defence  of  our  country,  will  be  subjected  to  the  most 
painful  restrictions.  They  will  have  to  breathe,  as 
well  as  they  can,  in  a  Leyden  jar  of  neglect  and  oblivion. 
When  the  mountains  and  the  heritage  of  Esau  were 
laid  waste  by  the  dragons  of  the  wilderness,  we  are  told 
that  those  who  feared  the  Lord  spoke  often  one  to 
another.  In  the  coming  days  of  drought  and  discom- 
fort, while  so  much  active  benevolence  is  distributed, 
the  authors  of  England  will  be  drawn  more  and  more 
to  one  another,  and  must  organise,  without  fussiness 


32  Inter  Arma 


or  self-advertisement,  more  and  more  effective  schemes 
of  mutual  help.  Young  writers,  in  particular,  will  be 
sure  to  suffer,  and  those  branches  of  literature  which 
are  most  delicate,  admirable  and  original  will  be  attacked 
suddenly,  and  for  the  time  being  fatally.  For  the 
rubbishy  romance,  "  without  a  dull  page  from  cover 
to  cover,"  and  for  the  popular  essay  made  up  of  daisy- 
chains  of  commonplace  reflection,  we  need  feel  no  regret. 
The  silencing  of  these  importunate  babblings  will  be  a 
public  benefit.  But  the  writer  who,  at  the  outset  of 
what  promised  to  be  a  brilliant  career,  was  concen- 
trating the  intensity  of  his  energies,  without  thought  of 
gain,  on  the  production  of  works  of  positive  merit — he 
deserves  and  he  must  receive  from  those  who  value  the 
intellectual  wealth  of  the  nation,  all  the  succour  that 
can  be  spared  to  him.  For  he  also  is  a  patriot  who 
dedicates  his  imagination  to  the  glory  of  his  country. 

October  1914. 

THE  EFFECT  OF  THE  WAR  ON  LITERATURE 

Watching  the  great  war  is  like  looking  through  a 
kaleidoscope,  the  pattern  of  which  changes  at  every 
touch.  The  essay  printed  above  was  written  at  our 
darkest  moment,  when  the  long  army  of  the  Germans 
was  sweeping  upon  Paris  with  what  seemed  to  be  an 
uncontrollable  fury.  Through  the  mercy  of  God  that 
fury  was  presently  controlled  by  a  feat  of  arms  on  the 
part  of  the  army  of  the  Allies  which  I  believe  that 
history  will  regard  as  little  less  than  miraculous.  The 


War  and  Literature  33 

situation  at  the  close  of  September  may  be  held  to 
account  for  a  tone  which  might  not  unfairly  be  regarded 
as  too  gloomy.  It  was  not  that  I  doubted  of  the  issue, 
but  that  I  thought  it  only  too  probable  that  for  the 
time  being  French  civilisation  would  be  swept  out  of 
existence,  as  that  of  Belgium  has  in  effect  been  swept, 
and  that  the  intellectual  life  of  England,  by  a  reverbera- 
tion of  sympathy,  would  be  hardly  less  completely  dis- 
organised. In  glancing  over  what  I  then  wrote  I  see 
that  I  carried  too  far  the  analogy  of  France  in  1870-1. 
Then,  undoubtedly,  a  paralysis  fell  upon  the  literature 
of  France,  from  which  it  did  not  recover  till  the  Germans 
consented  to  withdraw  from  the  soil  of  France. 

In  turning  to  probable  conditions  in  our  own  country, 
however,  I  was  not  even  then  tempted  to  suppose  that 
the  effect  of  the  war  could  approach  what  we  saw  in 
France  in  1870,  or  what  I  feared  we  were  about  to  see 
in  England.  I  said,  as  firmly  as  I  could,  that  I  saw  no 
reasonable  fear  of  such  a  catastrophic  cessation  of  all 
literary  activity  in  England  as  was  unquestionably 
produced  in  France  in  August  1914.  But  I  admit  that 
I  expected — and  I  know  that  many  capable  observers 
expected  with  me — that  what  is  called  "  current  litera- 
ture," that  is,  the  publication  of  books  not  dealing 
directly  with  the  war  and  the  issues  arising  from  it, 
would  cease  for  the  remaining  duration  of  the  struggle. 
I  prophesied,  in  groundless  forebodings,  "  there  can  be 
no  aftermath,  we  can  aspire  to  no  revival."  It  is  a 
positive  luxury  to  look  back  on  those  words  and  to 
admit  with  the  deepest  satisfaction  that  they  were  un- 


34  Inter  Arma 


founded.  After  months  of  magnificent  effort  in  other 
and  far  more  essential  directions  it  is,  I  think,  wonder- 
ful to  observe  not  how  much,  but  how  little,  the  intel- 
lectual energy  of  the  nation  has  been  either  depressed  or 
disconcerted.  It  is,  perhaps,  interesting  to  note  what 
the  general  result  has  been. 

For  one  thing,  the  literary  favourites  of  the  public, 
who  were  expected  to  relapse  into  utter  silence,  like 
songbirds  in  August,  have  with  scarcely  an  exception 
continued  to  express  themselves.  Even  the  professors, 
instead  of  sulking  because  no  one  any  longer  cared 
about  Greek  prosody  or  the  botany  of  Central  Africa, 
have  ventilated  their  patriotism  with  great  vivacity 
in  a  perfect  hailstorm  of  pamphlets.  The  Pamphlet, 
which  had  almost  ceased  to  be  a  branch  of  literature 
except  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Balfour,  has  taken  a  new 
and  even  an  unprecedented  lease  of  life.  There  was 
nothing  to  equal  it  in  the  days  of  Tractarian  Oxford, 
and  to  find  a  parallel  we  must  go  back  two  hundred 
years  to  the  days  of  the  Bangorian  Controversy.  The 
perfidy  of  German  militarism  is  inexhaustible,  and  the 
exposure  of  it  has  inspired  an  incalculable  number  of 
paper-bound  octavos.  The  activity  of  the  poets,  too, 
has  far  exceeded  all  previous  human  computation.  No 
earlier  war,  in  any  country,  has  inspired  such  a  whirl- 
wind of  verse.  I  remember  being  told  by  Robertson 
Smith  that  at  one  time  the  living  poets  of  Arabia 
numbered  one  thousand  and  two,  but  that  was  in  an 
age  of  peace.  The  war-poets  of  England  must  number 
far  more  than  that.  This  redundancy  of  verse  shows 


War  and  Literature  35 

that  the  war  has  not  disturbed  our  literary  ambition 
as  a  race. 

The  poems  and  the  pamphlets  are  short.  Of  long 
books  on  subjects  neither  military  nor  political  I  con- 
fess that  the  output  does  seem  to  be  comparatively 
scanty.  But  when  in  Paris  almost  all  the  serious 
reviews  ceased  to  appear,  and  when  the  solitary  sur- 
vivor, the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  shrank  to  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  tract,  I  did  not  find  our  graver  periodicals 
affected.  The  Journal  of  Egyptian  Archceology  con- 
tinues to  enlighten  us,  although  bombs  may  any  morning 
be  dropped  upon  Beersheba;  Mr.  Russell  calmly  goes 
on  distinguishing  Sensation  from  Imagination  in  the 
pages  of  the  Monist.  These  particular  magazines  are 
beyond  my  grasp,  but  I  take  a  solemn  satisfaction  in 
their  appearance.  While  gentlemen  of  the  highest 
erudition  continue  to  discuss  Newton's  Hypotheses  of 
Ether  and  Gravitation  I  feel  that  I  should  bemean  myself 
if  I  despaired  of  the  Republic.  The  recent  publication 
of  a  work  on  Homogeneous  Lineal  Substitutions  cheered 
me  more  than  any  amount  of  attacks  on  the  horrors 
of  Prussianism,  because  I  felt  that  so  long  as  such 
abstruse  productions  could  find  their  market  in  England 
our  confidence  in  Lord  Kitchener  and  Sir  John  Jellicoe 
must  be  absolutely  unruffled. 

So  far,  then,  the  effect  of  the  war  on  literature  seems 
to  me  mainly  to  have  been  a  winnowing  away  of  those 
interests  which  have  never  been  very  firmly  rooted  in 
our  habits.  That  is  to  say,  there  has  no  doubt  been  a 
great  reduction  of  the  reading  which  was  carried  on, 


36  Inter  Arma 


if  we  may  say  so,  for  reading's  sake.  There  is  a  tre- 
mendous difference  between  the  class  that  takes  up  a 
book  because  it  must  be  doing  something  and  the  class 
that  would  rather  be  reading  than  doing  anything  else. 
The  former  departs  when  its  interests  are  distracted; 
the  latter  continues  until  its  very  existence  is  attacked. 
The  former  returns  to  its  light  and  broad  allegiance 
the  moment  that  the  pressure  of  outer  excitements 
is  removed.  The  latter,  if  once  uprooted,  floats  dis- 
consolate and  is  not  easily  refixed.  That  the  purely 
intellectual  energies  of  the  country,  which  six  months 
ago  I  too  readily  believed  would  cease  to  act  in  literary 
form,  have  not  been  radically  disturbed  is,  I  think, 
plain  from  a  multitude  of  signs.  Bodies  engaged  in 
organised  intellectual  effort,  such  as  the  British  Academy, 
the  Academic  Committee,  and  the  Bibliographical 
Society,  have  not  suspended  their  labours  nor  their 
meetings.  I  believe  that  in  many  of  these  instances 
there  were  propositions  and  suggestions  of  faint  heart, 
but  that  in  almost  all  these  were  rejected,  and  surely 
with  a  wise  instinct  of  patriotism. 

A  friend  of  mine  in  Paris,  an  author  of  high  repute, 
who  has  given  up  everything  else  to  devote  himself 
humbly  to  the  aid  of  the  wounded,  wrote  to  me  last 
year  that  "  The  man  of  letters  cuts  a  poor  figure  in 
these  times."  In  France,  it  is  evident,  he  makes  no 
great  show  outside  the  columns  of  the  newspapers, 
where  writers  like  MM.  Alfred  Capus,  G.  Hanotaux, 
Maurice  Barres,  and  the  late  Comte  de  Mun  have  kept 
since  the  war  began  at  a  very  noble  level.  But  France 


War  and  Literature  37 

is  too  deeply  wounded,  with  the  long  gash  in  her  side, 
to  write  many  books  yet  or  to  read  them.  In  England, 
although  we  are  very  angry,  zealous,  and  devoted,  there 
is  not  the  material  disturbance  which  the  actual  presence 
of  an  enemy  in  the  land  must  cause.  The  publications 
of  the  Pipe  Roll  Society  continue,  and  the  Geological 
Survey  of  Scotland  pursued  its  petrological  observations 
even  when  there  were  German  submarines  bobbing  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Mersey.  It  is  partly  because  the 
inhabitants  of  this  country  have  a  genius  for  keeping 
calm  in  trying  circumstances,  and  partly  because  the 
circumstances  have  not  yet  become,  and  we  earnestly 
hope  will  never  become,  so  trying  as  to  overwhelm  all 
the  lifelong  and  instinctive  interests  of  non-combatants. 
The  novel,  that  petted  Cinderella  of  literature,  is  thor- 
oughly well  able  to  look  after  itself.  I  waste  no  anxiety 
over  it.  The  novelists  have  always  been  the  first  to 
profit  by  prosperity  and  the  loudest  to  scream  at 
adversity.  But  even  the  novelists,  led  by  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward,  Mr.  E.  F.  Benson,  and  the  author  of  Sinister 
Street,  seem  to  be  doing  as  well  as  could  be  expected. 

On  the  slippery  path  of  predicting  what  will  happen 
to  English  literature  after  the  peace  I  will  not  be  so 
rash  as  to  set  my  foot.  But  while  the  war  proceeds, 
and  especially  as  the  vehemence  and  onset  of  it  are 
damped  down  by  the  inevitable  exhaustion  of  the 
enemy,  we  may  expect  to  see  all  that  is  genuine  and 
sincere  in  literature  and  science  hold  its  own.  No 
brilliant  effusion  of  talent,  no  exploration  of  new  fields, 
can  be  expected  or  even  desired.  But  we  shall,  I  think, 


38  Inter  Anna 


see  a  quiet  persistence  along  the  old  paths,  and  we  may 
be  comforted  by  the  disappearance  of  a  good  deal  that 
was  merely  histrionic.  The  self -advertising  mountebank 
will  grow  tired  of  standing  on  his  head  in  the  empty 
market-place.  We  may  probably  hear  very  little  more 
about  "  vorticists."  But  those  branches  of  learning  and 
letters  which  do  not  depend  upon  advertisement,  but 
pursue  their  own  labours  for  the  love  of  them,  are 
likely  to  be  less  affected  by  the  torment  of  war  than 
we  were  prepared  to  believe  when  first  it  thundered 
upon  us  out  of  a  sky  which  seemed  to  be,  relatively, 
not  less  blue  than  usual. 
April  1915- 


THE    UNITY   OF    FRANCE 


THE    UNITY    OF    FRANCE 

WE  are  all  of  one  mind  in  admiring,  and  often  with  an 
admiration  bordering  upon  amazement,  the  magnificent 
temper  in  which  the  heroic  French  nation  has  faced  its 
stupendous  hour  of  trial.  But  there  is  a  danger  that 
the  nature  of  the  national  fortitude  should  be  misappre- 
hended in  this  country,  and  as  a  fact  much  has  been 
hastily  said  on  this  subject  in  the  English  press  which 
is  not  founded  on  a  close  study  of  recent  history.  From 
every  point  of  view  it  is  unjust  and  unseemly  to  proclaim 
our  surprise  at  the  heroism  of  the  French,  and  to  assume 
that  the  calm  of  the  population,  and  its  confidence,  and 
its  unity,  are  due  to  a  sudden  miracle  supernaturally 
brought  about  by  the  act  of  mobilisation  in  August  1914. 
To  assert  this,  and  to  talk,  as  too  many  English  publicists 
have  done,  of  a  New  France,  created  at  the  moment  of 
the  declaration  of  war  on  purpose  to  resist  the  advances 
of  Germany,  is  not  merely,  in  my  opinion,  to  state  a 
matter  of  history  incorrectly,  but  it  is  to  do  a  grave 
injustice  to  the  intelligent  evolution  of  French  sentiment. 
The  France  which  is  now  so  gallantly  fighting  with  us 
and  with  the  rest  of  the  Allies  to  prevent  the  triumph 
of  Teutonic  evil  is  simply  the  France  which  has  long  been 
in  preparation  for  a  life-struggle  with  the  powers  of 
darkness. 

41 


42  Inter  Arma 


Those  who  detested  France  and  had  every  spiritual 
and  material  reason  for  depreciating  her  values  con- 
tinued to  repeat,  with  nauseous  iteration,  that  she  was 
in  full  decadence,  and  that  her  race  was  eaten  out  to  the 
core  by  the  white  ants  of  social  disorder.  The  disputes 
of  radicals  and  moderates,  of  socialists  and  reactionaries, 
of  anti-militarists  and  clericals,  were  pointed  to  with  glee 
as  the  evidences  of  ethical  chaos  in  a  bewildered  people, 
and  events  like  the  Caillaux  trial  and  its  result  saddened 
the  best  friends  of  France  as  much  as  they  were  exulted 
over  in  Berlin.  What  has  not  been  understood  has 
been  the  superficial  character  of  these  symptoms.  The 
pretended  levity  of  Paris  was  all  on  the  surface,  and  even 
there,  if  the  exotic  elements  were  eliminated  and  the 
action  of  the  parasitic  population  removed,  there  was 
little  for  a  formalist  to  condemn  or  even  reprove.  What 
in  the  charming  gaiety  of  the  French  might  seem,  in 
face  of  the  most  painful  contingencies  of  the  moment, 
to  be  frivolous,  was  thrown  like  a  gauze  veil  over  the 
harsher  lines  of  life.  This  complaint  of  the  levity  of 
France  is  one  of  the  poorest  excuses  which  dulness  can 
make  for  its  own  want  of  amiability.  No  one  has  put 
the  matter  more  vividly  than  Voltaire  when  he  says : 
"II  me  semble  que  la  vertu,  1'etude  et  la  gaiete  sont 
trois  soeurs  quil  ne  faut  point  separer."  For  our  own 
part,  so  far  from  reproaching  France  with  her  frivolity, 
we  should  be  inclined  to  regret  the  increasing  seriousness 
of  the  national  countenance,  which  of  late  years  has 
seemed  less  and  less  ready  to  break  out  into  those  ripples 
of  laughter  which  have  always  fascinated  the  nations. 


The  Unity  of  France  43 

Yet,  if  France  has  of  late  laughed  less,  her  smile  has  on 
occasion  been  more  beautiful  than  ever. 

There  is  more  reason  in  the  objection  that  has  of 
recent  years  been  brought  against  the  French  people  for 
an  apparent  want  of  internal  harmony  and  evenness  in 
its  treatment  of  political  and  social  aims.  In  the  ardent 
struggles  of  French  thought  during  the  last  two  decades, 
it  has,  indeed,  been  sometimes  difficult  to  trace  that 
continuity  of  purpose  which  should  be  the  aim  of  public 
life.  The  constant  disturbances,  the  angry  wranglings, 
the  battles  royal  between  Labour  and  the  Army,  the 
Church  and  the  Republic — these  have  often,  we  admit, 
been  depressing  to  those  of  us  who  have  loved  France 
best.  It  is  very  difficult  for  eyes  that  watch,  however 
benevolently,  another  nation  from  a  distance,  to  avoid 
misapprehension  of  developments  which  are  unfamiliar 
in  their  kind.  But  reflection  will  persuade  us  that  even 
the  social  agitations  which  have  so  often  bewildered  us 
in  recent  French  politics  were  founded  on  generous 
instincts.  They  were  conducted  in  the  interest,  often, 
no  doubt,  in  the  mistaken  and  even  the  perverted 
interest,  of  equity  and  justice.  They  were  exasperating 
in  their  form,  and  they  led  to  deplorable  episodes,  but 
in  their  essence  they  were  not  ignoble.  At  the  basis 
even  of  their  irregularities  it  was  always  possible  to 
trace  a  zeal  for  first  principles  and  the  universal  rights 
of  man,  no  less  than  for  the  emancipation  of  intelligence 
and  for  the  progress  of  civilisation.  Even  the  crisis  of 
Dreyfusism,  which  saddened  and  bewildered  the  rest 
of  the  world,  and  in  some  of  its  features  presented  an 


44  Inter  Arma 


aspect  of  unrelieved  distress,  even  this  melancholy  affair 
revealed  marvellous  examples  of  high  civic  courage.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  after  all  these  years  it  is  the 
intrepidity  of  the  combatants,  far  more  than  their  con- 
fused and  squalid  struggle,  which  remains  vivid  to  us 
when  we  look  back  on  the  dismal  swamp  of  Dreyfusism. 
We  do  well,  therefore,  to  protest  against  this  talk  of  a 
New  France,  risen,  like  a  phoenix  out  of  the  funeral  pyre 
of  the  old,  for  the  instant  purpose  of  combating  the 
arrogance  of  Prussia.  The  France  of  to-day  is  splendid, 
but  its  effort  is  not  miraculous ;  it  has  long  been  prepared 
for  by  the  elements  of  its  ancient  and  continuous  civilisa- 
tion. Those  who  watched  the  nation  closely  before  the 
outbreak  of  this  war  have  no  cause  for  surprise,  though 
much  for  gratulation  and  thankfulness,  in  the  evolution 
of  national  character ;  it  is  welcome,  but  it  is  no  more 
than  we  expected.  For  fifteen  years  past  it  has  been 
impossible  for  an  unprejudiced  and  perspicacious  ob- 
server to  fail  to  see  that  France  has  been  gathering  her 
moral  forces  together,  simplifying  her  political  attitude, 
preparing  without  haste  for  concerted  action.  The 
superficial  agitations  in  the  social  life  of  the  country  have 
been  vastly  exaggerated  and  seriously  misunderstood 
by  foreign  observers.  It  is  evident  that  in  Germany, 
with  the  brutal  superficiality  of  a  race  equally  hostile 
and  unimaginative,  they  were  seized  upon  with  alacrity 
and  grotesquely  overestimated.  It  seems  important 
to  meet  the  calumnies  of  foes  and  the  bewilderment  of 
friends  by  a  statement  of  the  unbroken  essential  tradition 
of  France. 


The  Unity  of  France  45 

The  importance  of  cultivating  an  intellectual  and 
moral  unity  in  the  thought  of  France  was  insisted  upon 
by  Renan  so  long  ago  as  at  his  entrance  into  the  French 
Academy  thirty-six  years  ago.  If  there  is  anything  with 
which  we  may  venture  to  reproach  our  admirable  French 
friends,  or  certain  of  the  most  ardent  of  them,  it  is  with 
their  recent  ungracious  attitude  towards  this  eminent 
man.  It  is  true  that  in  this  matter  England  has  no 
right  to  adopt  an  attitude  of  reproof,  so  long  as  a  section 
of  our  press  and  people  continues  to  attack  one  of  the 
noblest  of  living  patriots — a  great  statesman,  a  great 
philosopher — in  accents  of  virulent  ingratitude.  The 
fact  that  Renan  is  discovered,  by  a  recent  publication, 
to  have  corresponded  civilly  with  his  brother  Hebraist, 
David  Strauss,  has  been  sufficient  to  draw  down  upon 
him  absurd  and  ignorant  charges  of  having  his  "  spiritual 
home  in  Germany,"  and  has  been  used  to  revive  the  idle 
and  malignant  gossip  of  Edmond  de  Goncourt  in  his 
too-famous  Journal.  It  seems  impossible  to  make  the 
flightier  part  of  a  population,  already  somewhat  upset 
in  nerves  by  the  terrific  events  of  the  last  few  months, 
realise  that  knowledge  is  not  necessarily  approval,  and 
that  the  sternest  reprobation  of  the  political  crimes  of 
a  country  can  exist  side  by  side  with  an  appreciation  of 
special  work  done  by  private  hands  in  a  particular 
department.  But  France  will  certainly  recover  her 
recognition  of  the  value  of  Renan,  and  England,  in  a 
parallel  case,  will  not  always  continue  churlish  to  one 
of  the  most  devoted  of  her  servants. 

It  is  well  to  remember  what,  in  that  beautiful  Discours 


46  Inter  Arma 


de  Reception  (April  3,  1879),  Renan  said  to  the  Academi- 
cians. "  Oil  est  done  votre  unite,  Messieurs?  Elle  est 
dans  1'amour  de  la  verite."  He  dwelt,  in  language 
which  has  singularly  the  accent  of  to-day,  upon  the 
radical  error  of  Teutonism.  His  words  deserve  to  be 
recalled  to  memory,  so  strikingly  do  they  foreshadow 
the  moral  stigma  which  events  have  fastened  upon 
Germany.  Renan  said,  while  entreating  the  Acade- 
micians to  support  and  to  unify  the  ancient  and  beautiful 
culture  of  their  own  race — 

"  Vous  vous  inquietez  peu  d'entendre  annoncer 
pompeusement  I'avenement  de  ce  qu'on  appelle  une 
autre  Kultur,  qui  saura  se  passer  du  talent.  Vous  vous 
d£fiez  d'une  Kultur  qui  ne  rend  I'homme  ni  plus  aimable 
ni  meilleur.  Je  crains  fort  que  des  races,  bien  se"rieuses 
sans  doute,  puisqu'elles  nous  reprochent  notre  le"gerete, 
n'eprouvent  quelque  mecompte  dans  1'esperance  qu'elles 
ont  de  gagner  la  faveur  du  monde  par  de  tout  autres 
proc6d6s  que  ceux  qui  ont  re"ussi  jusqu'ici.  Une  science 
pe"dantesque  en  sa  solitude,  une  haute  societe  sans  eclat, 
une  noblesse  sans  esprit,  des  gentilhommes  sans  politesse, 
ne  detr6neront  pas,  je  crois,  de  sitot,  le  souvenir  de  cette 
vieille  societe  francaise  si  brillante,  si  polie,  si  jalouse  de 
plaire." 

Nothing  could  be  more  pointed,  while  the  reproach  is 
pressed  in  the  great  writer's  best  style  of  prelatical 
irony,  and  the  only  objection  to  it  is  that  the  arrow  is  too 
delicate  to  pierce  the  thick  hide  of  the  Boches.  But 
here  we  have  a  Frenchman  of  genius,  so  long  ago  as 


The  Unity  of  France  47 

1879,  coming  forward  as  what  M.  Paul  Margueritte,  in 
a  fine  phrase,  calls  "  le  champion  de  1'Esprit  centre  la 
Bestialit6  armee."  It  was  a  reminder  to  France  that 
she  had  not  lost  the  attention  of  the  world,  and  could 
only  lose  it  if,  by  frittering  away  her  genius  in  internal 
dissensions,  she  forgot  to  preserve  the  tradition  of  her 
intellectual  and  moral  greatness.  Renan  urged  the 
France  of  his  day,  the  France  of  thirty-six  years  ago,  not 
to  be  intimidated  by  the  truculence  of  her  eastern  rival, 
not  to  endeavour  to  compete  with  her  mechanical  and 
material  culture,  but  to  cling  to  all  that  was  refined, 
sympathetic,  and  inspiring  in  the  unbroken  tradition  of 
the  ancient  genius  of  France. 

Those  who  have  watched  a  little  closely  the  movement 
of  affairs  in  France  cannot  but  have  observed  the  in- 
creasing tendency  towards  energy  of  action  among  young 
men.  There  has  been  a  steady  development  in  this 
direction.  The  French,  whose  life  had  tended  to  run 
in  very  conventional  channels  of  practical  movement, 
have  enlarged  their  borders  in  every  direction  that  leads 
to  individual  activity.  The  cultivation  of  games,  which 
took  a  strong  upward  line  from  the  year  1900  onwards, 
has  proceeded  so  rapidly  and  so  uniformly  that  when  the 
war  broke  out  last  year  there  was  scarcely  a  country 
village  which  did  not  possess  its  clubs  of  football  and 
tennis.  Cricket  has  continued  to  be  a  mystery  not  to 
be  penetrated  by  the  Gallic  mind,  but  the  other  physical 
exercises — and  with  the  addition  of  much  more  horse- 
riding  and  fencing  than  are  customary  at  present  in  this 
country — have  extended  their  influence  over  the  mind 


48  Inter  Arma 


as  well  as  the  body  of  young  France  to  a  degree  which 
must  not  be  underrated.  Games  played  with  energy 
and  spirit  extend  the  sentiment  of  responsibility,  and 
it  is  obvious  that  in  this  sphere  they  have  had  a  directly 
beneficial  effect  upon  French  character,  the  defect  of 
young  France  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century 
having  evidently  been  its  inability,  or  lack  of  oppor- 
tunity, to  assert  initiative  in  conduct.  One  of  the 
earliest  advocates  of  football  remarked,  with  a  pleasing 
naivete,  "  Les  fautes  commises  se  paient  directement, 
soir  par  une  chute,  soit  par  la  perte  de  la  partie  on 
de  1'assaut  engage.  II  en  va  de  meme  dans  la  pratique 
des  affaires  :  une  erreur  d'execution  entraine  pour  son 
auteur  un  prejudice  direct."  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  liberty  of  action  which  young  Frenchmen  have 
insisted  upon  since  the  opening  of  the  present  century 
has  had  an  extraordinary  effect  on  their  ability  to  form 
a  rapid  and  firm  decision. 

In  our  opinion  it  was  the  crisis  of  1911  which  enabled 
the  French  to  take  advantage  of  all  the  reviving  energy 
of  their  race  and  tradition.  The  country  had  arrived 
at  a  point  when  all  depended  upon  a  shock  to  its  nervous 
system.  Agadir  came,  and  it  pulled  the  whole  youth 
of  France  together  in  a  sudden  splendid  unity  of  purpose. 
The  writer  of  these  lines  asks  to  be  forgiven  if  he  refreshes 
his  memory  by  turning  to  notes  which  he  made  at  that 
moment.  From  a  Paris,  somnolent  in  the  gloom  of 
August,  and  inhabited  apparently  only  by  a  population 
of  Germans  and  Americans,  from  Paris  slumbering  in  a 
haze  of  cosmopolitan  indifference  and  representative  of 


The  Unity  of  France  49 

nothing  at  all,  he  came  to  a  beautiful  house  in  the  heart 
of  Burgundy,  a  hospitable  house  of  great  antiquity, 
shadowed,  as  by  a  rock  in  Palestine,  by  the  bulk  of  a 
famous  basilica.  Here  was  France  indeed,  without  the 
least  admixture  of  the  tourist  or  the  restaurant,  the 
brasserie  transferred  from  Berlin  or  the  bar  that  pre- 
tended to  be  in  New  York.  Here  were  gathered,  in 
various  generations,  a  group  of  people  representing,  in 
contrast  and  in  harmony,  the  sentiments  of  French 
intelligence.  If  I  may  complete  my  indiscretion,  I  will 
name,  as  those  who  led  the  delightful  revels,  two  men 
whose  influence  on  younger  minds  has  asserted  itself 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  France,  my  admirable 
friends,  M.  Paul  Desjardins  and  the  resuscitator  of  the 
medieval  Tristram  and  Iseult,  M.  Joseph  Bedier. 

There  was  something  theatrical  in  the  suddenness 
with  which,  in  the  midst  of  our  enchanted  talks  under 
the  spreading  branches  of  another  "  Tree  of  Taine,"  there 
fell  upon  the  studious  company  there  assembled  news 
of  the  German  aggression  in  Morocco.  Suddenly  the 
unfamiliar  name  of  Agadir  appeared  before  us,  a  sinister 
inscription  written  right  across  the  north-eastern  sky. 
For  a  little  while,  it  will  be  remembered,  war  seemed 
imminent,  at  all  events  it  seemed  so  to  us  in  that  burning 
silence.  And  now,  it  was  of  the  deepest  interest  to  me 
to  feel  the  pulse,  as  it  were,  of  the  Frenchmen  round  me, 
elderly,  middle-aged  and  young,  and  so  to  judge  of  their 
temper.  With  held  breath,  questioning  and  listening, 
I  seemed  privileged  to  apply  my  ear  to  the  actual 
auscultation  of  a  fragment  of  the  heart  of  France.  In 


50  Inter  Arma 


the  echoes  of  talk  which  I  took  down  at  that  moment, 
I  find  the  key-note  of  "  calmness "  prominent.  A 
certain  idealism  which  lies  a  little  below  the  surface  of 
every  thinking  Frenchman  was  brought  up  to  light  by 
the  shock,  and  lay  there  ready  to  meet  without  undue 
agitation  whatever  the  next  weeks  or  days  might  bring 
forth.  There  was  no  boasting;  that  was  particularly 
notable  to  one  who  could  remember  the  shouts  of  "  A 
Berlin  !  "  in  1870.  There  was  anxious,  but  not  un- 
dignified inquiry  of  the  solitary  Englishman,  "  Will 
England  be  with  us?  "  to  which  in  his  ignorance  he 
could  only  reply,  "  I  hope  so  and  I  think  so." 

Very  vivid  in  my  memory  is  a  walk  on  one  afternoon 
of  that  week  of  suspense,  a  walk  taken  in  the  Cuyp-like 
golden  atmosphere  of  the  illimitable  stubble-fields  of  the 
Yonne,  in  going  without  an  aim,  in  returning  with  the 
vast  church,  like  a  ship  at  sea,  towering  on  the  horizon 
for  a  goal.  My  companion,  one  of  the  wisest  of  men, 
spoke  gravely,  almost  fatalistically,  of  the  immediate 
future.  He  mourned  the  nonchalance  and  negligence 
of  the  official  class,  the  bureaucracy  of  France,  so  little 
alive  to  the  great  movements  of  the  age.  He  lamented 
the  passion  for  cities,  the  polimania,  which  drained  the 
country  districts  of  their  richest  blood.  But  his  own 
faith  was  staunch  and  well  grounded;  he  was  per- 
suaded that  the  crisis  would  awaken  a  universality  of 
patriotism,  a  flood  in  which  all  the  social  scum  would 
disappear,  as  before  a  stream  of  wholesome  waters. 
And  he  said,  with  a  stoic  reserve,  "  If  we  are  doomed  to 
disappear  before  the  barbarian,  we  can  at  least  die  with 


The  Unity  of  France  51 

dignity,  fighting  to  the  last,  and — surely,  surely ! — 
without  the  disgrace  of  internal  dissension  and  private 
reproach."  As  we  came  near  to  our  home,  and  the 
western  light  flashed  in  the  windows  of  our  great  abbey- 
church,  which  might  have  been  the  symbol  of  the  un- 
shaken State,  the  diapason  of  our  talk  closed  full  on  the 
notion  of  Union, — France  drawn  together  in  the  battle 
for  existence  along  a  serried  line  of  consistent  defence. 

That  particular  cloud,  as  every  one  knows,  evaporated 
and  left  the  sky  of  Europe  comparatively  clear.  But 
the  lesson  of  Agadir  was  not  forgotten.  It  made  itself 
felt  in  many  ways  throughout  the  year  1912,  when  a 
change  in  the  general  tone  of  the  press  could  scarcely 
fail  to  be  observed.  One  very  curious  phenomenon  was 
the  reaction  against  the  excess  of  intellectualism,  which, 
it  is  now  easy  to  see,  had  been  a  main  cause  working 
towards  the  division  of  French  thought  into  warring 
camps.  It  was  now  that  a  leader  of  the  old  school 
exclaimed,  "  La  reaction  est  tres  forte,  plus  forte  que  je 
n'aurais  cru,  contre  Auguste  Comte,  Taine  et  Renan," 
and  this  because  those  eminent  oracles  of  a  preceding 
generation  had  underrated  the  value  of  composite  energy, 
and  had  encouraged  too  unstintedly  the  freedom  of 
individual  enterprise.  Very  remarkably  there  began 
to  assert  itself  among  the  intelligent  youth  of  France 
a  new  kind  of  abnegation,  which  prompted  them  to 
resign  what  had  seemed  their  most  valued  privilege,  the 
right  to  pursue  abstract  speculation  to  its  utmost  limits. 
It  was  now  that  M.  Maurice  Barres  dared  to  exclaim, 
"  La  raison,  quelle  pauvre  petite  chose  a  la  surface  de 


52  Inter  Arma 


nous-memes,"  and  that  a  prophet  still  less  expected, 
M.  Paul  Bourget,  found  it  possible  to  declare  that 
"  L'intellectualisme,  c'est  la  forme  la  plus  dangereuse 
de  rindividualisme."  It  was  at  this  time  in  the  summer 
of  1912  that  the  "  Enquete  sur  la  Jeunesse  "  of  the 
Revue  hebdomadaire  revealed  so  remarkable  a  consensus 
of  opinion  that  duty,  without  distinction  of  party,  must 
be  the  watchword  of  all  that  was  youthful  and  vigorous 
in  the  effort  of  France. 

A  year  later  than  the  Agadir  incident,  one  of  the 
soundest  and  wisest  minds  of  the  elder  generation,  one 
which  had  for  more  than  one  generation  been  brought 
singularly  close  to  the  consciences  of  the  young,  summed 
up  the  evidences  which  he  saw  before  him  of  the  con- 
dition of  France.  I  quote  these  eloquent  words  of  M. 
Emile  Faguet  (in  July  1912),  because  their  existence 
refutes,  as  well  as  any  document  could,  the  fallacy  of 
a  New  France,  arisen  without  previous  warning,  at  the 
shock  of  August  1914.  He  wrote — 

"  II  ressort  que  la  generation  qui  suit — d'assez  loin — 
celle  des  hommes  de  mon  age  (M.  Faguet  was  born  in 
1847)  est  energique,  sainement  passionnee,  curieuse, 
chercheuse,  inventeuse  et  eprise  d'action;  qu'elle  va  de 
Vavant  sans  etourderie,  ni  temerite,  mais  avec  un  tres 
bel  elan  d'esperance  et  de  foi;  qu'elle  ne  dissimule  ni 
les  dangers  qui  nous  menacent,  ni  les  defauts  nationaux, 
ces  autres  dangers,  "ni  la  grandeur  de  la  tache  qu'elle 
a  devant  elle  ou  plut6t  a  laquelle  elle  a  deja  mis  la 
main;  mais  qu'elle  n'est  qu'excitee  par  ces  dangers 


The  Unity  of  France  53 

et  ces  difficultes  et  que,  sans  le  chercher  avec  un 
dilettantisme  pue"ril,  elle  accepte  de  tout  son  coeur  de 
vivre  dangereusement." 

We  believe  that  the  opinion  expressed  in  these  eloquent 
words  was  eminently  just,  and  we  insist  upon  this  in 
defiance  of  much  that  in  the  intervening  months  occurred 
to  sadden  and  perplex  the  lovers  of  France.  We  are 
convinced  that,  in  direct  contradiction  to  the  squalid 
evidences  of  things  said  and  done,  and  of  much  dirty 
linen  washed  in  public  by  the  newspapers,  there  was  a 
wide  and  essential  resuscitation  of  intelligence,  activity, 
and  probity  throughout  all  classes  of  French  society, 
and  that  it  was  this  which  made  preparation  for  the 
wonderful  manifestation  in  the  face  of  the  enemy. 
What  was,  however,  emphatically  lacking  in  this 
advance  of  national  energy  was  precisely  unity.  It 
must  frankly  be  acknowledged  that  over  the  surface 
of  the  energy  of  France  there  was  lacking  this  enamel  of 
a  definite  common  purpose.  This  absence  of  national 
unison  was  particularly  formidable  in  matters  of  religion 
and  of  labour. 

No  doubt,  in  looking  back  over  the  past  four  or  five 
years,  the  most  menacing  phenomenon  in  French  social 
life  has  been  the  apparent  triumph  of  anti-militarism. 
This  had  become  a  leading  principle  in  that  system  of 
solidarite  ouvriere  from  which  so  much  future  prosperity 
was  expected.  There  had  grown  up  a  strange  tradition 
that  to  suppress  the  army  was  to  suppress  the  greatest 
of  the  enemies  of  the  human  race,  international  war. 


54  Inter  Arma 


This  found  expression  in  axioms  which  a  few  months 
have  proved  ridiculous,  but  which  were  accepted  with 
solemnity  and  approval.  It  is  hardly  conceivable  that 
so  recently  as  1912  a  leader  of  labour  in  France  could 
enunciate,  with  the  loud  approbation  of  his  audience, 
the  formula  "  Puisque  les  gens  qui  s'egorgent  sont  des 
soldats,  pour  qu'on  ne  s'egorge  plus,  il  faut  qu'il  n'y  ait 
plus  de  soldats !  "  The  socialist  dream  of  a  universal 
strike  against  war  was  developed  in  the  revolutionary 
newspaper,  La  Guerre  Sociale,  by  M.  Gustave  Herve, 
who,  with  the  courage  of  a  fanatic,  was  ready  to  affront 
derision,  imprisonment,  and  even  the  menace  of  death 
in  support  of  his  views.  According  to  the  large  school 
of  labour  of  which  M.  Herve  was  the  mouthpiece,  the 
only  practical  method  of  preventing  war  was  to  in- 
timidate governments,  and  force  them  to  settle  their 
quarrels  peaceably,  by  declaring  a  general  strike  and 
insurrection  immediately  upon  any  threat  of  hostilities. 
When  it  became  evident  to  the  rulers  of  France  that  it 
was  necessary,  if  the  existence  of  the  country  was  to  be 
maintained,  to  be  prepared  to  resist  the  redoubtable 
enemy  on  the  eastern  frontier,  the  attitude  of  "la 
solidarite  ouvriere  "  on  this  question  of  a  war-strike 
became  the  most  perturbing  of  problems. 

If  the  working  classes  of  France  had  carried  out  their 
scheme — and  it  is  perhaps  little  remembered  that  it  was 
not  until  July  29,  1914,  in  connection  with  the  proposed 
mass  meeting  of  the  C.  G.  T.  in  the  Salle  Wagram,  that 
the  syndicalist  leaders  abandoned  their  plan  for  a  huge 
revolutionary  strike — it  is  as  certain  as  anything  can 


The  Unity  of  France  55 

be  that  France  would  have  been  helpless  against  the 
attack  of  the  invader.  Fortunately,  the  brain  which 
had  formulated  the  scheme  was  the  first  to  be  convinced 
of  its  futility.  M.  Gustave  Herve,  of  whom  many  hard 
things  have  been  said,  is  before  all  else  a  sincere  and 
reasonable  man ;  even  in  his  violence  he  pauses  to  con- 
sider his  logical  position ;  and  he  has  the  real  intellectual 
courage  which  admits  its  own  mistakes.  The  anti- 
militarist  movement,  of  such  exceeding  peril  to  the 
heart  of  France,  began  about  1906,  and  M.  Herve  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  it.  "  Plutot  1'insurrection  que 
la  guerre  "  was  voted  almost  unanimously  at  a  great 
meeting  in  Nancy,  and  the  Germans,  hard  by,  rubbed 
their  hands  silently  in  exultation.  Ingenious  arrange- 
ments were  proposed  and  accepted  by  the  French 
labour  leaders  for  rapid  action  to  paralyse  the  mobilisa- 
tion of  the  army,  if  France  were  to  deliver  an  ultimatum 
to  a  foreign  power. 

It  is  not  conceivable  that  any  large  number  of  French 
artisans  would  have  lent  themselves  in  serious  earnest 
to  so  treacherous  and  contemptible  a  manoeuvre.  But 
there  was  great  danger  in  the  state  of  mind  revealed 
by  the  mere  academic  discussion  of  such  a  scheme.  It 
was  quite  enough  to  disturb  the  consciences  and  weaken 
the  energies  of  tens  of  thousands  of  workmen.  For- 
tunately, it  was  the  fiery  candour  of  M.  Gustave  Herve 
himself  which  provided  an  antidote  for  the  poison  which 
he  had  distributed.  Of  course,  the  whole  efficiency  of 
the  general  strike  project  depended  upon  its  being 
loyally  carried  out  by  the  socialists  of  other  nations. 


56  Inter  Arma 


The  French  proletariat  was  to  shake  hands  with  German 
labour  over  the  vainly-raging  guns  and  helmets  of  a 
couple  of  paralysed  War  Offices.  But  M.  Herve,  with  a 
subtlety  which  his  feverish  temper  would  hardly  have 
led  us  to  expect,  was  watching  the  attitude  and  weighing 
the  words  of  the  German  "  comrades  "  at  the  inter- 
national congresses.  In  1912  he  became  privately 
convinced  of  their  absolute  hypocrisy,  and  in  spite  of 
all  their  assurances  of  confraternity  he  perceived  that 
they  meant  to  betray  the  cause  of  socialism  at  the  last 
moment  in  the  interests  of  their  master's  imperial  policy. 
He  saw  that  their  dream  was  to  impose  on  the  conquered 
nations  of  the  rest  of  Europe  the  socialistic  theories  of 
Germany.  We  may  reflect,  with  what  philosophy  we 
may,  on  the  revelations  which  reach  us  from  every 
point,  of  the  degree  to  which  the  individual  conscience 
of  the  German  citizen  has  allowed  itself  to  grow  honey- 
combed with  perfidy. 

A  highly  theatrical  incident  was  the  murder  of  Jaures, 
on  July  21.  He  was  killed  by  a  crazy  fanatic  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  had  returned  from  a  visit  to  the 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  to  whom  he  had  gone  to 
entreat  him  to  beg  Russia  to  make  a  last  effort  at  con- 
ciliation in  order  to  avoid  the  horror  of  a  great  war.  He 
argued  that  it  was  better  to  break  off  the  alliance  with 
Russia  than  to  engage  France  in  such  a  struggle.  The 
position  of  Jaures  at  the  head  of  the  socialists  of  the 
country  gave  a  peculiar  significance  to  this  stupid  crime, 
and  for  a  moment  the  universal  question  was  would 
his  supporters  revenge  his  death  by  some  violently 


The  Unity  of  France  57 

unpatriotic  act?  But  France  was  too  sober,  too  per- 
spicacious, for  such  folly.  It  became  apparent  at  once 
that  the  death  of  Jaures  would  change  in  no  degree  the 
political  unison  of  parties.  The  Guerre  Sociale  expressed 
the  universal  opinion  when  it  said,  next  morning, 
"  Jaures  has  failed  to  secure  peace;  it  is  for  us  at  least 
to  secure  the  country  from  invasion."  That  night 
mobilisation  began  all  over  the  face  of  France,  and  not 
a  socialist  or  syndicalist  voice  was  raised  to  interrupt 
it.  Next  day,  in  spite  of  his  years  and  his  infirmities, 
M.  Gustave  Herve,  the  arch-antimilitarist,  put  his  own 
services  unreservedly  at  the  disposal  of  the  country  in 
an  eloquent  open  letter  to  the  Minister  of  War. 

What  sealed  the  peace  of  parties  at  this  thrilling 
moment,  and  testified  to  the  greatness  of  the  national 
sentiment,  was  the  attitude  of  the  body  which  had  stood 
at  the  opposite  extreme  of  the  political  line,  and  had 
fought  with  ceaseless  energy  against  the  inroads  of 
socialism.  On  August  i,  M.  Maurice  Barrel,  the 
president  of  the  League  of  Patriots,  wrote  a  letter  to 
Mademoiselle  Jaures,  in  which  he  spoke  of  the  murder 
of  her  father  the  night  before  as  having  cemented  all 
French  hearts  in  union.  His  words  will  be  remembered 
in  history,  for  their  echoes  were  far-reaching  :  "  L'union 
est  deja  faite  de  tous  les  Frangais  " ;  this  is  the  "  union 
sacree  "  which  has  reigned  ever  since,  and  has  created 
in  France  that  magnificent  fund  of  fortitude  and  steady 
hope  which  makes  her  the  wonder  and  envy  of  the  world. 
The  principle  of  unity  was  gained,  and  it  is  therefore 
of  lesser  importance  to  note  that  the  original  enthusiasm 


5  8  Inter  Anna 


was  too  brilliant  not  to  be  a  little  tarnished  by  time. 
Already  in  October  1914  the  strain  was  making  itself 
felt  about  the  clerical  question.  The  Ligue  des  Patriotes 
fretted  under  the  yoke  which  bound  it  to  its  profane 
neighbours.  Already  M.  Maurice  Barres  could  not 
resist  the  temptation  to  announce  that  if  France  was 
to  be  victorious  it  must  be  under  the  banner  of  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul,  of  St.  Louis,  of  Pascal.  Already  M. 
Gustave  Herve  recalled  the  merits  of  Voltaire,  of 
Diderot,  of  Kleber,  of  Desaix ;  and  murmured  his  horror 
of  an  "  envahissement  catholique."  It  was  the  old, 
old  story,  and  much  to  be  deplored,  but  these  differences 
were  on  the  surface,  and  it  was  too  late  for  there  to  be 
any  fear  that  they  could  disturb  the  depths  of  the  holy 
union  of  Frenchmen.  The  transient  affectation  of  anti- 
militarism  had  faded  away  like  a  wisp  of  vapour  in  the 
glare  of  national  peril. 

All  this  was  not  a  new  revelation.  It  was  the  in- 
evitable result  of  the  long  training  which  the  French 
spirit  had  undergone,  and  in  particular  of  the  awakening 
of  the  national  conscience  which  followed  the  crisis  of 
1911.  If  it  be  not  thought  too  fantastic,  I  would  venture 
to  suggest,  as  in  some  degree  an  inspiring  cause,  the 
growing  admiration  which  attended  the  memory  of 
that  noble  woman,  Eugenie  de  Guerin,  who,  for  half  a 
century  after  her  death  in  1848,  was  scarcely  known  in 
France,  but  whose  memory,  since  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth  century,  has  been  more  and  more  widely 
cultivated.  The  influence  of  such  a  character  as  hers, 
when  it  is  found  to  contain  the  mysterious  quality  of 


The  Unity  of  France  59 

arresting  the  attention  of  posterity,  is  capable  of  being 
far  more  extensive  than  we  readily  imagine.  Eugenie 
de  Guerin,  whose  life  was  the  most  monotonous  and 
secluded,  the  most  humble  and  self-abnegating  which 
can  be  conceived,  has  nevertheless,  by  sheer  force  of 
character  and  appropriateness  to  the  occasion,  become 
a  sort  of  intellectual  and  moral  Jeanne  d'Arc  to  the 
latest  generation  in  France.  They  find  in  her  exactly 
the  qualities  which  adorn  and  protect  the  virility  of  the 
French  nation  to-day.  Her  courage,  her  faith,  her 
reverence,  her  intensity  of  love  for  the  fatherland,  her 
passion  for  domesticity,  and  her  sense  of  the  dignity  of 
a  rural  round  of  duties,  point  her  out  as  a  guardian  saint 
of  France  to-day.  No  one  has  with  a  more  tender 
generosity  insisted  upon  the  sublimity  of  those  whom 
the  world  despises,  and  upon  the  genuine  confraternity 
of  souls. 

There  may  seem  to  be  something  fantastic  in  passing 
from  the  shadowy  figure  of  Eugenie  de  Guerin  to  the 
solid  and  violent  presence  of  Charles  Peguy,  but  no  one 
who  examines  the  signs  of  the  times  will  be  shocked 
at  the  transition.  Every  great  national  crisis  produces, 
or  should  produce,  a  symbol  or  legend  which  sums  up 
the  sentiment  of  the  circumstances.  A  man  who  has 
walked  on  a  level  with  his  compeers,  exciting  the  affec- 
tion of  some,  the  hatred  of  others,  and  the  complete 
indifference  of  the  vast  majority,  suddenly  becomes,  for 
no  very  apparent  reason,  the  centre  of  an  almost  super- 
stitious attention.  He  is  what  gamblers  call  a  luck- 
piece;  his  existence  seems  to  be  bound  up  with  the 


60  Inter  Arma 


universal  weal;  nay,  even  his  death  may  be  the  sign 
of  his  redoubled  importance.  Such  a  mascot  France  has 
discovered  in  the  person  of  Peguy,  who  was  killed  during 
the  battle  of  the  Ourcq,  at  the  village  of  Plessis-TEveque, 
near  Meaux,  on  September  5,  1914.  To  a  far  greater 
extent  than  the  loss  of  any  other  man  of  intellect  or 
art,  the  death  of  Peguy  has  affected  the  spirit  of  France. 
A  legend  has  grown  up  around  his  name,  a  legend  which 
illuminates  it  like  the  skin-lika  in  Bulwer's  famous  story, 
accompanying  the  human  form  and  transfiguring  it 
with  a  supernatural  luminosity.  It  is  necessary  that  we 
should  try  to  discover  why  Peguy  has  become  a  part 
of  the  Unity  of  France. 

He  was  of  peasant  race,  and  his  forebears  were  vine- 
growers  in  the  Beauce.  But  they  fell  into  great  poverty, 
and  while  his  grandmother,  who  could  neither  read  nor 
write,  earned  a  few  pence  by  taking  a  farmer's  cows  to 
grass,  his  mother  lived  by  mending  old  chairs  and  hiring 
them  out  to  worshippers  in  the  cathedral  of  Orleans, 
"  Personne  mieux  que  Peguy  n'a  pratique  la  pauvrete," 
says  his  biographer,  but  he  was  not  content  to  endure 
its  disadvantages.  Early  he  showed  remarkable  apti- 
tude for  study,  and  his  career  in  the  Ecole  Normale  was 
so  brilliant,  that  he  seemed  destined  for  the  chair  of  a 
professor.  But,  when  he  was  seven  years  old,  while 
his  mother  was  mending  her  chairs  in  the  cathedral, 
the  boy  was  already  dreaming  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  and 
secretly  in  his  heart  he  never  ceased  to  nourish  the 
romantic  ambition  of  fighting  for  France,  not  with  a 
bayonet,  for  he  was  an  anti-militarist  socialist,  but  with 


The  Unity  of  France  61 

his  brain  and  his  will.  He  "  took  to  writing,"  as  we 
say,  not,  I  think,  because  he  had  a  very  strong  vocation, 
but  because  this  was  the  simplest  way  in  which  a  young 
man,  without  material  advantages,  could  indent  his 
character  and  his  conscience  upon  contemporary  opinion. 
From  an  obscure  and  unimpressive  journalist,  and  a  poet 
who  rarely  did  justice  to  his  own  emotion,  Peguy  has 
become  one  of  the  heroes  of  French  tradition,  and  the 
centre  of  a  legend.  It  is  worth  while  to  investigate  the 
reason. 

In  1896,  when  he  was  five-and-twenty  years  of  age,  he 
published  his  first  book,  Le  mystere  de  la  char  He  de  Jeanne 
d'Arc.  He  used  to  say  that  he  should  go  on  writing 
about  Jeanne  d'Arc  if  he  lived  to  be  a  hundred.  In 
this  first  volume,  which  attracted  but  a  limited  attention, 
but  is  now  revived  or  discovered  in  a  somewhat  unthink- 
ing enthusiasm,  Peguy  exhibits  a  personal  sentiment 
which  is  widely  characteristic  of  France  to-day,  but  is 
with  great  difficulty  comprehended  by  an  English  mind. 
He  was  what  we  should  call  a  complete  sceptic,  that  is 
to  say  he  had  no  belief  in  any  of  the  traditions  or  dogmas 
of  revealed  religion.  As  he  grew  older,  he  became 
more  of  a  believer,  but  always  a  heretical  one.  He  pro- 
tested that  heresy  was  the  life-blood  of  religion,  and 
that  faith  died  in  the  arms  of  orthodoxy.  He  was  a 
secular  mystic,  and  there  was  only  one  point  upon  which 
he  coincided  with  the  rest  of  the  religious  world,  but  this 
happened  to  be  of  the  very  essence  of  Gallic  faith.  He 
believed,  without  a  shadow  of  incredulity,  in  the  divine 
mission  of  France  as  the  elder  daughter  of  God  and 


62  Inter  Arma 


sublime  mother  of  the  nations,  and  in  the  indissoluble 
unity  of  Frenchmen.  His  design  was  to  carry  out  in  the 
twentieth  century  the  sacred  labour  of  Jeanne  d'Arc. 

In  February  1900  Peguy  began  to  publish,  in  a  very 
modest  way,  a  sort  of  periodical  miscellany,  called  Les 
Cahiers  de  la  Quinazine.  In  this  magazine  he  not 
merely  printed  his  own  lucubrations,  but  those  of  others 
with  whom  he  found  himself  in  more  or  less  close 
sympathy.  One  among  these  friends  was  destined  to 
immediate  celebrity,  M.  Romain  Rolland,  whose  Jean 
Christophe  began  to  appear  in  the  Cahiers.  By  a 
curious  revolution  of  the  kaleidoscope,  while  one  of 
these  friends  has  become  the  symbol  of  patriotism,  the 
other,  tormented  by  the  oddities  of  individualism,  has 
lost  the  confidence  of  all  Frenchmen,  and  is  fain  to  live 
in  exile.  The  contrast  is  remarkable ;  while  M.  Rolland, 
distracted  by  the  ingenuities  of  a  too-subtle  imagination, 
has  lost  his  hold  on  reality,  Peguy  owes  his  transcendent 
fame  to  the  fact  that,  more  decidedly  than  perhaps  any 
other  man,  he  determined  to  go  straight  for  general 
political  truth,  without  the  smallest  concession  to  amour- 
propre,  and  understood  that,  in  the  hugest  contingencies, 
"  but  one  thing  is  needful." 

His  biographer,  M.  Andre  Suares,  who  strikes  one  as 
more  ardent  than  judicious,  claims  for  Peguy  that  he  is 
"  the  Carlyle  of  France,  infinitely  better  than  the  other, 
more  true,  more  free  and  more  human."  These  parallels 
are  sometimes  unlucky,  and  one  wonders  which  of  the 
writings  of  the  English  (or  Scotch)  Carlyle  M.  Suares  is 
familiar  with.  Carlyle  is  at  present  suffering  in  this 


The  Unity  of  France  63 

country  from  a  general,  and  it  must  be  said  a  deserved, 
unpopularity,  due  in  great  measure  to  his  total  inability 
to  see  the  trend  of  German  Kultur.  He  recommends, 
with  lamentation  and  invective  at  our  blindness  in 
not  accepting  it,  a  tendency  which  has  at  last  been 
revealed  to  us  in  all  its  abominable  brutality.  Carlyle's 
writings  have  become  unpalatable  to  us,  because  we 
find  them  running  counter  to  our  sober  experience,  and 
outrageous  to  our  national  conscience.  But  in  the  case 
of  Peguy,  it  is  precisely  the  fact  that  the  events  of  the 
war  have  proved  him  to  be  completely  in  harmony  with 
the  sentiment  of  France  which  has  led  to  his  universal 
acceptance.  Moreover,  whether  we  disapprove  of 
Carlyle  or  not,  he  was  a  writer  magnificent  in  exactly 
the  directions  where  Peguy,  who  lacks  conciseness  and 
wanders  into  endless  repetition,  is  weak.  Both  writers 
are  austere,  both  adopt  the  camel's-hair  clothing  and 
the  wild  honey  of  the  desert ;  each  has  the  recklessness 
of  the  professional  satirist.  But  here  the  parallel 
ceases.  With  the  harshness  of  Peguy  there  mingles  a 
tenderness  unknown  to  Carlyle. 

The  poetry  of  Charles  Peguy  has  been  so  little  read  in 
this  country  that  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  a  sonnet, 
on  Sainte  Genevieve,  as  patron  and  guardian  of  Paris,  in 
which  the  temper  of  his  mysticism  is  seen  at  its  best.  He 
is  rarely,  it  must  be  confessed,  so  concise  as  this — 

"  Comme  elle  avait  garde  les  moutons  a  Nanterre, 
On  la  mit  a  garder  un  bien  autre  troupeau, 
La  plus  enorme  horde  ou  le  loup  et  1'agneau 
Aient  jamais  confondu  leur  commune  misere. 


64  Inter  Arma 


Et  comme  elle  veillait  tous  les  soirs  solitaire 
Dans  la  cour  de  la  ferme  ou  sur  le  bord  de  1'eau, 
Du  pied  du  meme  saule  et  du  meme  bouleau 
Elle  veille  aujourd'hui  sur  ce  monstre  de  pierre. 

Et  quand  la  nuit  viendra  qui  fermera  le  jour, 
C'est  elle  la  caduque  et  1'antique  bergere, 
Qui,  ramassant  Paris  et  tout  son  alentour, 

Conduira  d'un  pas  ferme  et  d'une  main  legere 
Pour  la  derniere  fois  dans  la  derniere  cour 
Le  troupeau  le  plus  vaste  a  la  droite  du  pere." 

The  attitude  of  Peguy,  a  satirist,  a  spirit  of  anger  and 
reproach,  yet  recognised  in  this  time  of  extreme  crisis  as 
the  very  symbol  of  the  holy  unity  of  France,  throws  a 
light  upon  the  whole  situation.  Our  claim  that  what 
we  see  so  magnificently  produced  before  us,  for  the 
healing  of  the  nations,  is  not  a  New  France,  miraculously 
created,  but  the  old  France  welded  together  and  passed 
through  the  fire  of  affliction,  is  not  affected  by  the  fact 
that  there  are  now  and  again  breezes  in  the  Chamber, 
or  that  the  newspapers  yelp  at  one  another,  or  that  the 
inevitable  tongue  of  pessimistic  slander  wags  in  Parisian 
drawing-rooms.  These  are  accidents  on  the  surface 
of  manners,  and  they  only  show  that  time  brings,  in 
the  long  suspense,  a  certain  light  forgetfulness.  But 
some  movement  of  troops,  some  machination  of  the 
cunning  and  treacherous  enemy,  some  reverse  of  one 
of  the  Allies,  has  but  to  intervene,  and  these  storms  in 
the  conversational  teapot  are  forgotten  in  a  moment, 
and  all  is  "  union  sacree  "  once  more.  It  is  very  diffi- 
cult for  a  foreigner,  not  accustomed  to  the  easy  persiflage 
and  enchanting  provocation  of  French  talk,  not  to  be 


The  Unity  of  France  65 

deceived  into  taking  seriously  what  is  no  more  than 
the  traditional  Gallic  habit  of  disputation. 

It  is  more  difficult  still  to  decide  whether  the  harmony 
which  now  reigns  through  all  strata  of  French  society, 
and  is  a  national  strength  more  valid  than  triple  walls 
of  brass,  whether  this  is  or  is  not  to  be  durable.     In 
other  words,  when  victory  comes  at  last,  and  the  forces 
of  Teutonic  crime  are  disarmed,  will  the  social  grades 
continue  to  live  at  home  in  unity,  or  shall  we  see  break 
out  again  the  guerrilla    warfare    of    royalist   and   re- 
publican, of  intellectual  and  activist,  of  socialist  and 
reactionary?     That,  of  course,  is  beyond  the  power  of 
any  prophet  to  decide.     Posterity  has  a  most  provoking 
way  of  settling  matters  in  such  a  way  as  to  contradict 
the  safest  formulas  of  the  philosophers.     But  we  may 
confidently   believe    that   the   fortune   which   has   led 
France  through  so  many  strident  centuries  will  not 
abandon  her  in  the  twentieth.     No  doubt,  when  the 
danger  is  removed,  the  instinct  which  holds  back  every 
man  from  an  expression  of  opinion  which  might  offend 
his  neighbour  will  be  relaxed.     Somebody  has  said  that 
Frenchmen  must  argue  with  one  another,  to  pass  the 
time,  as  an  alternative  to  playing  chess.     But  we  may 
be  allowed  to  doubt  whether,  after  this  prodigious  lesson, 
the  nation  will  ever  again  repeat  the  levity  of  Boulangism 
or  the  bitterness  of  the  Dreyfus  affaire. 

Some  things  we  may  vaguely  see,  without  presuming 
upon  prophecy.  Crude  anti-militarism  has  shown  itself 
to  be  a  transient  folly,  and  it  will  be  a  very  long  while 
before  that  nonsense  will  be  repeated.  If  mutual  con- 


66  Inter  Arma 


fidence  between  the  nations  should  be  resumed,  new 
aspirations  after  universal  peace  may  be  developed, 
but  they  will  hardly  come  in  our  time.  France  will 
doubtless  feel  that,  for  a  couple  of  generations  at  least, 
the  treacherous  brute  is  prowling  at  her  eastern  frontier, 
and  anti-militarism  will  be  the  last  thing  in  the  world 
to  dream  of.  The  fatuous  love  of  the  human  race  first 
and  one's  own  country  next,  has  always  been  a  will-'o- 
the-wisp  to  lead  certain  speculative  French  minds  a 
dance  over  the  swamps.  This  will  be  quite  absent  in 
the  future,  and  the  irritation  which  it  caused  at  home 
will  be  removed.  A  calm  military  patriotism,  univer- 
sally accepted,  will  be  a  source  of  constant  practical 
unity.  The  events  of  the  present  vast  war  must  diffuse 
throughout  French  society  those  qualities  of  abnegation, 
discipline,  and  honour  on  which  the  late  M.  de  Mun 
laid  such  stress  until  the  very  hour  of  his  departure. 

The  name  I  have  just  quoted  recalls  a  very  touching 
episode  in  the  unity  of  France.  It  seemed  as  though 
the  deaths  of  two  great  opposing  leaders  of  thought  were 
necessary  to  seal  in  blood  the  pact  of  parties.  We  have 
seen  that,  at  the  very  moment  when  war  broke  out, 
Jaures,  the  head  of  the  extreme  socialists,  was  murdered  ; 
on  October  5,  exhausted  by  his  laborious  anxiety,  the 
Comte  de  Mun,  leader  of  the  Catholic  party,  was  found 
dead  in  his  bed.  A  phrase  written  next  morning  by 
the  most  violent  of  his  opponents  sheds  a  flood  of  light 
on  the  temper  of  France.  M.  Gustave  Herve,  celebrating 
M.  de  Mun  in  the  Guerre  Sociale,  declared,  "  Qu'importe 
qu'il  aimat  la  France  autrement  que  nous,  et  pour  des 


The  Unity  of  France  67 

raisons  opposees,  puisque  qu'il  1'aimait  autant  que  nous." 
At  that  moment  of  complete  national  reconciliation, 
M.  de  Mun  was  mourned  as  respectfully  and  even 
tenderly  by  the  extreme  socialists,  as  by  those  practising 
royalist  Catholics  whom  he  had  courageously  represented 
through  his  long  and  strenuous  career. 

The  intellectual  basis  upon  which  the  splendid  unity 
of  France  is  built  has  no  exact  parallel  elsewhere  in  the 
world  of  to-day.  Without  derogating  in  the  smallest 
degree  from  the  signal  merits  of  our  own  national 
system,  or  of  that  of  our  other  allies,  it  can  hardly  be 
questioned  by  any  impartial  observer  that  we  see  in 
France  the  riper  results  of  a  more  consistent  and  a  more 
complicated  civilisation  than  is  presented  by  any  other 
country.  The  French  possess  in  a  higher  degree  than 
their  neighbours  the  habit  of  dealing  on  broad  lines 
with  series  of  abstract  ideas.  Nothing  is  more  striking 
in  conversation  with  very  young  Frenchmen  than  the 
enfranchisement  of  their  intelligence  and  their  habit  of 
dealing  rather  with  general  principles  than  with  indi- 
vidual cases.  This  faculty  of  intelligence  has  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  the  blessed  unanimity  of  French 
opinion,  a  unanimity  of  the  highest  importance  to  the 
world  in  general,  since  in  our  sacred  common  resistance 
to  the  brutality  of  German  arrogance  it  is  the  noble 
apostolate  of  France  which  leads  the  intelligence  of  the 
Allies.  And  in  this  connection  we  may  ponder  over 
the  words  spoken  by  M.  Eugene  Lamy  at  the  annual 
public  seance  of  the  French  Academy  (November  25, 


68  Inter  Arma 


"  Une  inspiration  plus  haute  leur  revela  que  les  plus 
decisives  paroles  devenaient  vaines  si  la  France  etait 
battue,  que  pour  un  peuple  la  source  du  genie  national 
est  1'independance,  que  les  especes  les  plus  nobles 
n'enfantent  pas  en  captivite,  que  la  race  francaise,  sur- 
tout  pour  etre  feconde,  a  besoin  de  sa  spontaneite  sou- 
veraine.  Or,  une  race  etrangere  pretendait  envahir  non 
seulement  notre  sol  mais  notre  intelligence,  soumettre 
aux  deformations  de  son  dressage  notre  autonomie, 
ecraser  notre  genie  sous  le  marteau-pilon  de  sa  culture. 
Us  comprirent  que  si  cette  violence  1'emportait,  ils 
n'auraient  plus  de  continuateurs." 

Continuation  !  That  is  the  keynote  of  French  unity. 
The  spiritual  treasure  which  has  been  handed  down  by 
an  unbroken  line  of  ancestors  must  be  guarded  and 
transmitted  at  all  hazards  and  in  spite  of  all  sacrifices. 
Few  expressions  have  been  more  widely  repeated  in 
France  this  year  than  the  saying  attributed  to  a  soldier 
in  the  trenches,  who  at  the  moment  when  an  assault  on 
the  enemy  was  ordered,  cried  out,  "  Debout  les  morts  !  " 
It  is  the  dead,  the  dead  of  ten  centuries  of  vicissitude 
and  glory,  who  rise  at  this  moment  to  fight  with  their 
living  brethren  for  their  heritage  of  humanity  and 
liberty  and  light  against  the  dark  genius  of  Prussian 
slavery  and  tyranny.  The  memory  of  Valmy  is  fre- 
quently invoked  in  the  course  of  existing  affairs,  and  it 
is  a  glorious  one,  but  national  feeling  is  far  more 
unanimous  in  1915  than  it  was  in  1792,  and  General 
Joffre  has  a  more  majestic  task  before  him  than  fell  to  the 


The  Unity  of  France  69 

lot  of  Dumouriez.  When  M.  Herve  dines  with  the  Abbe 
Colin,  chief  of  the  Catholic  party  in  Lorraine ;  when  the 
ultra-socialists  are  reconciled  with  M.  Briand ;  when  the 
bishops  have  put  the  whole  of  their  wonderful  organisa- 
tion at  the  service  of  the  state  for  the  collection  of  gold 
and  the  subscriptions  to  the  "  Emprunt  de  la  Victoire  "  ; 
when  priests  are  everywhere  calling  for  rifles ;  when  the 
influence  of  M.  Bergson  and  of  M.  Barres  permeates 
all  intellectual  society  without  encountering  the  smallest 
hindrance;  when  the  sans-patrie,  as  they  used  to  be 
called,  exhibit  an  enthusiasm  not  exceeded  by  any 
Bonapartist  or  Royalist — then  we  may  say  that  the 
Germans,  who  have  blundered  in  so  many  things,  have 
at  least  done  one  thing  completely,  they  have  soldered 
together  in  one  impenetrable  mass  the  fighting  energies 
of  France. 

Let  us  not  perversely  look  for  mysterious  phenomena 
in  connection  with  the  splendid  effort  of  the  French, 
nor  pretend  that  circumstances  have  called  up  out  of 
chaos  the  phantom  of  a  new  France.  There  has  been 
no  "  miracle,"  even  in  the  victory  of  the  Marne ;  no 
intervention  of  supernatural  powers  unknown  to  the 
country  of  so  many  heroes  of  intellect  and  action.  It 
is  needless,  even,  although  seemly  and  gracious,  to 
invoke,  as  Peguy  did,  the  memorial  figures  of  Jeanne 
d'Arc  and  Ste.  Genevieve.  If  we  treat  them  as  symbols, 
as  faces  of  heroines  long  dead  who  shine  down  from  the 
heavens — well  and  good.  But  let  us  not  involve  our- 
selves in  admitting  a  breach  of  the  spiritual  continuity 
with  the  past.  Above  all,  let  us  put  far  behind  us  the 


jo  Inter  Arma 


impious  suggestion  of  a  punishment  brought  down  upon 
the  head  of  France  for  her  sins  and  frivolities.  What 
we  really  see,  and  should  forbid  ourselves  to  permit  to 
be  obscured,  is  a  natural  revival  of  the  ancient  virtues 
characteristic  of  France  in  all  her  higher  moods,  recover- 
ing themselves  after  the  shock  of  treacherous  attack, 
and  shining  with  unequalled  brightness  precisely  because 
of  the  unparalleled  volume  and  force  of  that  attack. 
The  unity  of  the  nation  is  the  expression  of  a  store  of 
vitality  long  amassed  for  this  very  purpose  of  defence 
in  time  of  sorest  need.  In  the  sight  of  the  whole  world, 
France  has  proved  herself,  by  the  splendour  of  her 
unity,  capable  of  the  sternest  energy,  the  most  heroic 
devotion.  But  the  resuscitation  of  her  intelligence, 
her  activity  and  her  probity,  should  be  to  us  who  stand 
at  her  side  subjects  of  admiration,  not  of  astonishment. 

January  1916. 


THE    DESECRATION    OF 
FRENCH    MONUMENTS 


THE    DESECRATION    OF 
FRENCH    MONUMENTS 

IT  is  well  said,  in  the  official  report  of  the  Sous-Secre- 
tariat d'feat  des  Beaux- Arts  on  the  injuries  done  by  the 
German  invasion  to  the  cities  of  France,  that  these  cities 
have  suffered  "  in  their  flesh  and  in  their  spirit."  In 
other  words,  they  have  had  to  endure  a  double  tribulation 
in  the  death,  outrage,  or  other  personal  misery  of  their 
population,  and  in  the  destruction  of  those  ancient 
buildings  which  were  their  heritage  and  their  pride.  All 
who  are  acquainted  with  French  provincial  life  must 
be  aware  of  the  jealous  enthusiasm  with  which  the 
inhabitants  of  the  principal  country  towns  regard  their 
local  monuments.  The  municipal  council  may  be  as 
anti-clerical  as  it  pleases ;  its  individual  members  are  no 
less  proud  of  their  cathedral  than  any  abbe  or  archi- 
pretre  could  be.  The  spiritual  life  of  the  town  revolves 
around  the  edifice  which  links  it  to  a  distant  and 
glorious  past,  which  encourages  the  combative  pride  of 
the  population,  and  which  even  the  peasants  vaguely 
recognise  as  something  dignified  and  of  personal  value 
to  themselves. 

In  the  present  war  there  has  been  produced  an  element 
of  destructive  force  which  is,  in  its  main  essence,  new 

73 


74  Inter  Arma 


to  history,  and  which  is  excessively  sinister.  We  are 
accustomed  to  that  vague  stupidity  of  destruction  which 
is  inevitably  connected  with  the  necessities  of  strategy. 
No  general  can  endanger  his  safety  or  change  his  plan 
of  attack  because  a  beautiful  building  stands  in  the  way. 
It  is  obvious  that  such  aesthetic  sensitiveness  would  be 
absurd  and  even  blameworthy.  Works  of  art  must 
take  their  risk  like  human  beings,  if  they  have  the  mis- 
fortune to  find  themselves  crushed  in  the  embrace  of 
conflicting  armies.  But  in  the  campaigns  of  1914-15 
we  find  a  new  force  working  in  the  ingenious  brains  of 
the  German  invaders.  We  find  clear  evidence  of  their 
determination,  lucidly  planned  in  advance,  to  destroy 
peaceful  and  beautiful  towns  which  offered  no  resist- 
ance, simply  because  they  were  beautiful  and  were  of 
the  nature  of  spiritual  assets  to  the  opponent.  The 
existence  of  this  diabolical  ingenuity  of  desecration 
has  been  very  generally  perceived  in  the  case  of 
Belgium,  where  the  deliberate  assassination  of  Lou  vain 
and  Malines  excited  the  horror  of  the  whole  civilised 
world.  In  France  the  same  outrages  have  been  per- 
petrated, but,  with  the  exception  of  Reims,  these  seem 
as  yet  to  have  attracted  less,  or  less  definite,  sympathy 
in  England. 

Against  these  acts,  whether  in  France  or  in  Belgium, 
no  protest  has  been  raised  either  in  Germany  or  Austro- 
Hungary.  On  the  contrary,  the  servile  and  pedantic 
art-critics  of  the  Central  Empires  have  gloried  in  the 
humiliation  of  the  artistic  wealth  of  their  neighbours. 
They  have  displayed  the  savage  insensitiveness  of  which 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     75 

Heine  prophesied.  It  seems  to  be  no  more  than  just 
to  insist  that,  while  more  harrowing  and  more  immi- 
nently pathetic  details  of  human  suffering  pour  in  upon 
us,  we  should  yet  not  forget  to  execrate  the  results 
of  the  fury  of  the  disciplined  Teutonic  hordes  on  the 
treasures  of  French  art.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that 
in  the  case  of  a  country  so  sensitive,  so  highly  cultivated, 
so  elegantly  educated  as  France,  the  historical  monu- 
ments take  a  leading  part  in  sustaining  the  national 
independence.  They  foster  that  due  pride  and  resolu- 
tion which  support  the  national  grandeur.  It  was  with 
the  definite  intention  of  humbling  their  enemy  in  his 
tenderest  susceptibilities  that  the  Germans,  armed  by 
all  the  ingenuity  of  their  science,  coldly  executed  the 
destruction  of  Louvain  and  of  Reims.  It  is  impossible 
that  the  world  of  art  can  ever  forget  the  crimes  committed 
against  it  by  these  professorial  vandals,  and  I  think  it 
well  to  put  on  record,  as  plainly  as  the  shifting  history 
of  the  passing  hour  will  permit,  the  actual  facts  with 
regard  to  the  desecration  of  French  monuments.  I 
have  striven  to  exaggerate  nothing,  but  to  disengage 
from  the  often  vague  and  always  distracted  testimony 
of  survivors  what  is  approximately  the  real  state  of 
affairs. 

The  crime  committed  against  the  incomparable 
cathedral  of  Reims  has  awakened  throughout  the  world 
an  indignation  only  equalled  and  scarcely  surpassed 
by  the  horrors  of  Louvain.  It  is  noticeable  that  there 
was  a  difference  of  attitude  in  the  two  cases.  At 
Louvain,  amid  the  appearance  of  unbridled  frenzy,  a 


Inter  Arma 


perfectly  cool  calculation  spared  the  one  central  building 
which  might  be  a  future  asset  to  a  victorious  Germany. 
At  Reims  a  parallel  calculation  was  concentrated  on 
the  humiliation  of  France  by  the  desecration  of  that 
"  Bible  in  stone  "  which  was  the  peculiar  glory  and  joy 
of  every  thoughtful  Frenchman.  To  German  kultur, 
Louvain  might  yet  be  something,  Reims  must  ever  be 
nothing,  and  on  the  German  system  of  complete  con- 
tempt for  all  things  not  Teutonic,  to  smash  and  burn  the 
cradle  of  French  patriotic  sentiment  was  an  amusing 
as  well  as  a  laudable  feat.  With  the  horrible  erudition 
which  makes  their  barbarity  the  more  sickening,  the 
Germans  were  well  acquainted  with  the  value,  the 
beauty,  the  singularity  of  the  great  royal  treasure-house 
at  Reims.  It  was  knowing  all  this,  and  armed  with 
tiresome  disquisitions  and  monographs,  that  they  quietly 
resolved  on  a  complete  devastation  of  the  cathedral. 
The  conversation  of  the  Saxon  commander  with  the 
Mayor  of  Reims  is  preserved,  and  is  an  appalling  record 
of  callous  pedantry. 

The  national  sentiment  about  Reims,  as  the  cradle  of 
French  sovereignty,  was  first  recognised,  or  rather  was 
revived,  ninety  years  ago  when  the  government  decided 
on  the  coronation  there  of  Charles  X.  An  alternative 
proposal  had  been  that  the  ceremony  should  take  place 
at  St.  Denis,  and  if  this  had  prevailed  it  is  probable 
that  Reims  would  have  remained  no  more  sacred  than 
other  French  cathedrals.  We  gather  that  its  artistic 
value  had  been  greatly  neglected  since  the  occupation 
of  the  city  by  the  Allies  in  1814,  when  much  damage, 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     77 

not  of  a  structural  kind,  was  done  to  several  of  the 
noble  churches  of  Reims.  As  soon  as  the  coronation 
was  decided  upon,  a  work  of  restoration  was  begun  in 
feverish  haste,  with  the  result  that  by  May  1825  the 
cathedral  became  much  what  it  remained  until  the 
Commission  of  1875  worked  the  will  of  Viollet-le-Duc 
upon  it.  The  young  Victor  Hugo  attended  the 
ceremony,  fired  with  enthusiasm  for  the  essentially 
Gothic  style  of  the  church.  In  a  letter  to  his  wife 
(May  28,  1825)  he  wrote — 

"  Charles  and  I  spent  a  quarter  of  an  hour  gazing  at 
the  arch  of  a  single  doorway ;  we  should  need  a  year 
to  see  and  to  admire  the  whole.  The  interior,  as  they 
have  arranged  it,  is  much  less  beautiful  than  it  was  in 
its  ancient  nudity.  They  have  painted  the  old  granite 
blue,  and  have  loaded  the  austere  sculpture  with  gold- 
leaf  and  tinsel.  However,  they  have  not  repeated  the 
mistake  they  made  at  St.  Denis,  the  ornaments  are 
gothic  like  the  cathedral,  and  everything,  except  the 
throne,  which  is  of  the  Corinthian  order  (how  absurd  !) 
is  in  good  taste.  The  general  effect  is  pleasing  to  the 
eye,  and  the  more  one  reflects  on  the  proportions  of  the 
structure,  the  more  one  sees  that  the  best  possible  has 
been  done.  As  it  is,  this  decoration  shows  the  progress 
of  romantic  ideas;  six  months  ago  they  would  have 
turned  the  old  church  of  the  Franks  into  a  Greek 
temple." 

The  sentiment  of  a  whole  nation  for  the  miraculous 
building,  the  Rose  of  the  Kings  of  France,  has  been 


78  Inter  Arma 


steadily  growing  during  these  ninety  years,  and  it  is 
not  surprising  that  the  outrages  of  September  1914  have 
awakened  a  greater  rage  and  disgust  than  almost  any 
other  act  of  the  invader.  These  feelings  have  found 
expression  in  a  multitude  of  forms — in  the  poetry  of 
M.  Paul  Fort,  from  which  I  shall  quote  in  a  subsequent, 
essay;  in  the  prose  of  M.  Pierre  Loti's  La  Basilique- 
Fantdme ;  in  the  exhibition  of  innumerable  paintings  and 
photographs  of  the  fane  as  it  stood  before  last  year  and 
of  its  present  lamentable  and  mutilated  state.  For  this 
reason,  I  shall  dwell  less  on  the  actual  detail  of  damage 
done  to  the  cathedral  than  it  would  otherwise  be  needful 
to  do,  but  rather  concentrate  attention  on  matters  of 
less  importance  which  have  been  more  neglected.  In 
particular  it  is  well  to  record  briefly  the  exact  history  of 
the  devastation. 

It  was  on  the  4th  of  September  that  the  huge  advan- 
cing wave  of  German  invasion,  making  straight  for  Paris 
from  Charleroi  and  Mezieres,  broke  on  the  light  hills 
of  the  Haute  Champagne  and  paused  in  the  Remois. 
From  an  eminence  outside  they  playfully  threw  a  few 
bombs  at  the  cathedral,  and  smashed  a  little  old  glass. 
Then  they  occupied  Reims,  professing  great  veneration 
for  the  antiquities  of  the  city,  and  they  placed  their  own 
wounded  in  the  nave  of  Notre  Dame,  as  a  special  sign 
of  the  immunity  of  the  church  itself.  They  stayed  in 
Reims  eight  days,  doing  no  particular  harm,  but  on  the 
I2th,  when  they  evacuated  the  city,  the  bewildered 
inhabitants  saw  the  soldiers  heap  up  great  masses  of 
straw  within  the  cathedral.  The  Germans  pretended 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     79 

that  this  straw  was  to  form  beds  for  the  wounded,  but 
at  the  same  moment  all  the  wounded  were  removed,  and 
the  straw  left.  Already  a  sinister  suspicion  was  awak- 
ened in  the  minds  of  some  of  the  inhabitants.  The 
attitude  of  the  invaders  had  changed,  and  for  the  present 
nothing  more  was  said  about  the  cathedral  having  been 
"  annexed  to  the  German  Empire."  After  the  defeat 
on  the  Marne,  the  general  in  command  arrested  eighty- 
one  of  the  principal  citizens  as  hostages,  marched  them 
off,  and  issued  a  proclamation  that  if  anything  was  done 
by  the  inhabitants  unpleasing  to  the  German  authorities, 
the  hostages  would  immediately  be  executed,  and  on 
the  return  of  the  Germans  "  the  city  would  be  entirely 
or  partially  burned,  and  the  inhabitants  hanged."  A 
facsimile  of  this  atrocious  poster,  which  would  otherwise 
be  almost  incredible,  has  been  circulated  by  the  French 
government.  Having  given  Reims  this  foretaste  of 
their  "  frightfulness,"  the  Germans  evacuated  the  city  in 
the  evening. 

On  the  morning  of  the  I5th  the  bombardment  began, 
at  first  vaguely,  doing  little  harm.  The  great  church 
was  not  hit  until  the  I7th.  But  on  the  morning  of  the 
1 8th  shells  began  to  fall  with  more  and  more  precision 
and  effect,  aimed  directly  and  continuously  at  the 
cathedral.  By  the  fall  of  the  light,  a  serious  chipping 
of  the  sculpture  and  of  the  corners  of  the  masonry  was 
visible.  The  igth  of  September  1914,  however,  is  the 
red-letter  day  of  Hunnish  vandalism.  Exactly  one 
hundred  years  before,  the  atrocious  fanatic  of  Coblenz, 
J.  J.  von  Gorres,  had  fiercely  urged  his  countrymen — 


8o  Inter  Arma 


in  the  Rheinische  Merkur,  which  Napoleon  called  la 
cinquieme  puissance — to  "  reduce  to  ashes  that  basilica 
of  Reims,  where  Klodovig  was  crowned,  where  was 
founded  the  empire  of  the  Franks,  false  brethren  of 
the  noble  Germans."  "  Burn  that  cathedral,"  Gorres 
had  shrieked ;  and  now  at  last  his  prayer  was  heard . 
All  through  that  dreadful  igth  of  September  the  shells 
fell  in  a  continuous  rain  upon  the  almond-shaped  centre 
of  ancient  buildings  round  the  cathedral  and  the 
Hotel  de  Ville.  The  celebrated  Gothic  house,  No.  57 
rue  de  Vesle,  was  one  of  the  first  objects  to  be  entirely 
destroyed,  but  as  the  day  went  on  most  of  the  houses  of 
the  Place  Royale,  the  Quartier  Ceres,  the  archbishop's 
palace  and,  above  all,  the  interior  of  the  cathedral, 
suffered  the  same  fate.  The  bombardment  came  from 
the  slight  eminence  to  the  north-east,  not  far  from 
Fresnes.  It  was  the  fire  in  the  scaffolding  which  broke  out 
under  the  shells  which  did  the  greatest  amount  of 
damage. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  in  detail  into  the  extent  of 
the  injury  done  to  the  cathedral,  the  immense  solidity  of 
whose  osseous  structure  enabled  it,  in  outward  appear- 
ance, to  sustain  for  a  long  time  less  complete  destruc- 
tion than  the  more  fragile  buildings  around  it.  But 
as  a  wonderful  living  entity  the  existence  of  this  glorious 
church  was  at  an  end.  What  was  spared  by  this  princi- 
pal bombardment  was  lost  when  the  Germans  attacked 
Reims  again  on  October  14,  1914,  on  February  19,  1915, 
and  on  subsequent  occasions.  The  shell  appears  to  be 
left,  and  opinions  still  differ  among  architects  as  to  the 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     81 

degree  to  which  it  will  be  possible  to  "  restore  "  the 
battered  basilica;  the  Germans,  with  their  delicate 
tact,  have  suggested  that  a  master-builder  of  their  own 
might  undertake  the  job.  But  in  practical  fact  it  is 
best  for  us  to  realise  that  as  a  work  of  art  the  outraged 
cathedral  is  dead. 

The  peculiar  glory  of  the  exterior  of  Reims  was  its 
lace  work  of  exquisite  medieval  sculpture.  Architectural 
critics  have  objected  to  this  profusion  of  carved  design 
as  mitigating  the  grandeur  of  the  principal  lines  of  the 
building  and  as  frittering  away  some  part  of  its  imposing 
majesty.  But,  as  De  Quincey  reminds  us,  simplicity 
is  not  everything — Belshazzar's  Feast  was  not  simple. 
The  great  west  front  of  Notre  Dame  de  Reims  was 
rather  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  gallery  of  intentional 
magnificence  than  as  the  entrance  to  a  typical  Christian 
church.  The  Gothic  world  contained  no  other  such 
bewildering  specimen  of  richness,  mounting,  unstinted, 
far  up  into  the  heavens  and  farther  than  the  eye 
could  reach.  It  is  this  priceless  veil  of  sculpture  that 
German  brutality  has  destroyed,  and  this  is  the  answer 
to  those  who  declare  that  the  general  lines  of  the  cathedral 
have  been  preserved,  so  that  its  restoration  is  possible. 
This  might  be  true  of  other  cathedrals,  which  depend 
upon  their  proportions  and  their  scheme.  But  Reims 
depended  upon  its  wealth  of  exquisite  devotional  sculp- 
ture, carved  by  the  artists  of  Charles  V,  and  preserved, 
as  by  a  miracle,  through  the  dreadful  fire  of  1481,  when 
the  five  leaden  spires  were  melted,  and  poured  through 
the  streets  in  so  many  rivulets  of  burning  lava.  Let 


82  Inter  Arma 


us  consider  the  tribute  of  the  most  eminent  of  living 
sculptors.  M.  Auguste  Rodin,  just  before  the  war, 
wrote  of  Reims — 

"  The  cathedral  soars  above  me  like  a  flame.  I  pause 
before  the  portal.  These  figures  of  Saints,  well  com- 
petent to  hurl  the  thunderbolt !  These  humble  serving 
men,  who  carry  the  Book  !  This  great  figure  of  a 
majestic  woman,  the  Law  !  The  admirable  St.  Denis  of 
the  northern  doorway  carries  his  head  in  his  hand,  and 
two  angels  support  a  crown  where  the  head  should  be. 
May  I  not  see  in  this  a  symbol?  " 

On  all  these  statues  irremediable  ruin,  permanent 
desecration,  has  been  poured  by  the  ignoble  barbarity 
of  the  Germans.  It  is  said  that  a  certain  General  Baron 
von  Heeringen  was  the  executor  of  this  particular  feat. 
Let  not  the  name  of  so  detestable  a  Herostratus  be 
unrecorded  on  the  roll  of  infamy  ! 

In  our  anger  at  what  has  been  done  to  the  House  of 
Kings,  we  are  in  danger  of  neglecting  to  record  the 
damage  of  a  lesser  kind  which  has  been  perpetrated 
elsewhere  in  the  pre-eminently  picturesque  city  of 
Clovis.  The  nucleus,  of  which  we  have  spoken,  bounded 
by  the  boulevards  and  by  the  Rue  Chanzy,  is  believed 
to  be  entirely  reduced  to  ruins.  It  was  full  of  winding 
streets,  arcaded  pavements,  ancient  carved  houses,  and 
those  which  clustered  round  the  Place  d'Erlon,  resting 
on  pillars  of  stone  or  timber,  were  of  endless  variety  and 
romantic  charm.  The  curious  fa9ade  of  the  church  of 
St.  Remi,  in  the  square  of  the  same  name,  far  away  at 


Desecration  of  French   Monuments     83 

the  eastern  extremity  of  the  city,  and  peculiarly  exposed 
to  the  enemy,  is  said  to  be  unrecognisable,  its  world- 
famous  glass  lying  in  dust  on  the  desecrated  floor. 
This,  however,  is  far  from  being  the  first  time  that  St. 
Remi  has  been  forced  to  relinquish  its  treasures  to  the 
violence  of  an  enemy ;  it  suffered  incalculable  losses  at 
the  Revolution.  The  early  seventeenth-century  H6tel 
de  Ville;  the  brilliant  little  thirteenth-century  chapel 
of  the  archbishop's  palace ;  the  Maison  des  Menetriers, 
with  its  extraordinary  frieze  of  life-sized  statues,  under 
Gothic  arches,  of  minstrels  playing  on  strange  musical 
instruments  of  the  thirteenth  century;  the  sculptured 
fronts  and  arcades  of  the  Place  des  Marches — all  these 
are  objects  to  which  those  who  loved  Reims  in  the  past 
will  look  back  with  sorrow.  We  know  not  yet  whether 
they  are  all  of  them  entirely  destroyed,  but  we  shall  be 
the  less  disappointed  if  we  make  up  our  minds  to  see 
them  no  more  except  in  the  volumes  of  archaeologists. 

One  consolation,  however,  we  may  allow  ourselves. 
Much  anxiety  was  felt  among  art -lovers  as  to  the  fate 
of  the  celebrated  tapestries  which  on  feast-days  gave 
such  an  aspect  of  sumptuousness  to  the  interior  of  the 
cathedral.  The  oldest  of  these  were  presented  by  Arch- 
bishop Robert  de  Lenoncourt  in  1530;  there  are  four- 
teen of  them,  all  dealing  with  subjects  taken  from  the 
History  of  the  Virgin,  and  they  are  particularly  splendid 
in  colour.  They  have  not,  however,  the  historical 
interest  which  attaches  to  those  given  in  1593  by  Charles 
de  Guise,  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  called  the  Tapestries 
of  the  Mighty  King  Col  vis,  because  one  at  least  of  these 


84  Inter  Arma 


latter  deals  with  the  prowess  of  that  peculiarly  Remish 
monarch ;  however,  only  two  of  these,  and  a  fragment, 
out  of  the  six  which  once  existed,  have  reached  our  day. 
Finally,  there  are  the  Pepersack  Tapestries  presented 
by  Archbishop  Henry  of  Lorraine  in  1633,  which  were 
kept  in  the  archiepiscopal  palace,  but  which  the  present 
writer  had  the  privilege  of  seeing  on  an  Easter  Sunday 
many  years  ago,  when  the  incalculable  treasures  of  the 
church  were  simultaneously  exposed  before  a  dazzled 
audience.  The  earlier  tapestries  mentioned  above  were, 
it  was  at  first  reported,  destroyed  in  the  fire  of  the  igth 
of  September,  but  fortunately,  by  a  happy  forethought 
not  everywhere  displayed  by  the  French  local  authorities, 
they  had  long  before  been  packed  up  and  sent  to  a  safe 
and  secret  destination.  But  of  the  seventeen  Peper- 
sack pieces,  only  two  have  survived  the  bombardment 
and  the  fire.  They  were  in  artistic  merit  much  inferior 
to  the  Lenoncourt  and  the  Clovis  sets.  In  the  month  of 
August  1915  all  that  had  been  preserved  of  the  Reims 
tapestries  were  produced  from  their  hiding-place,  and 
exhibited  in  Paris,  at  the  Petit  Palais.  An  elaborate 
quarto  volume,  produced  by  Madame  M.  Sarter  in  1912, 
has  fortunately  retained  for  us  the  detailed  description 
and  reproduction  of  those  pieces  which  the  Germans 
have  now  destroyed. 

By  far  the  most  coherent  account  of  the  martyrdom 
of  Reims  is  given  by  M.  Henri  Jadart  in  the  remarkable 
journal  which  has  been  recently  published  in  the  collec- 
tion, Du  Tour  de  France.  M.  Jadart  is  the  librarian  of 
the  city  and  the  keeper  of  the  Reims  Museum.  His 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     85 

original  diary  must  be  a  very  curious  document;  it 
was  kept  in  pencil,  on  odd  scraps  of  paper,  and  often 
written  in  the  dark.  The  author  refused  to  leave  his 
post,  and  withdrew  at  length  to  the  cellars  of  his  museum, 
from  which,  whenever  there  was  a  lull  in  the  cannonade, 
he  emerged  to  note  what  fresh  damage  had  been  done 
to  the  sculptures,  the  documents,  and  the  works  of  art. 
His  unaffected  record  is  of  extraordinary  interest.  I 
regret  that  I  have  no  space  to  quote  from  it  the  tragical 
pages  in  which,  on  September  19,  he  observed  that 
the  scaffolding  on  the  northern  tower  of  the  cathedral 
had  at  last  taken  fire,  and  in  which  he  wrote  down,  hour 
by  hour,  the  progress  of  the  exterminating  flames. 

If,  in  time  to  come,  the  historians  of  Germany  prove 
ingenious  in  proffering  excuses  for  their  violence  at 
Reims,  on  pretexts  of  military  necessity  and  what  not, 
it  is  to  be  expected  that  they  will  do  their  best  to  pre- 
vent the  bull's-eye  of  history  from  being  flashed  on  their 
activities  at  Arras.  The  picturesque  capital  of  the 
Artois  offered  no  resistance  to  their  armies,  and  its  com- 
plete destruction  was  an  act  of  wanton  malice  unsur- 
passed in  the  roll  of  Teutonic  vileness.  It  is  desirable 
to  follow  with  considerable  care  the  treatment  of  Arras, 
which  has  not  received  from  English  writers  all  the 
sympathy  and  interest  which  it  deserves.  Let  it  be 
admitted  at  once  that  Arras  has  not  been,  in  past  years, 
appreciated  at  its  full  value  by  English  or  even  by  French 
artists.  It  has  never  attracted  the  tourist,  although 
in  its  completeness  and  strangeness  it  was  one  of  the 
unique  treasures  of  the  north  of  Europe.  In  our  guide- 


86  Inter  Arma 


books,  our  Joannes  and  our  Baedekers,  little  has  ever 
been  said  to  draw  the  man  "  for  whom  the  visible  world 
exists  "  to  any  places  in  which  the  monuments  are  not 
either  antique  or  medieval.  Since  the  days  of  Viollet- 
le-Duc,  what  has  occupied  French  critics  is  largely  the 
ecclesiastical  architecture  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  and 
early  Renaissance,  for  examples  of  which,  as  all  the 
world  is  aware,  northern  France  is  richly,  and  even 
lavishly,  conspicuous. 

But  there  is  another  source  of  picturesque  beauty 
in  France  of  which  the  guide-books  know  little  and  care 
less.     This  is  the  domestic  architecture  of  the  sixteenth 
and   early   seventeenth   century.     It   gave   a   peculiar 
charm  to  many  Flemish  towns,  most  of  which  have 
perished  in  the  course  of  this  war.     It  was  to  be  met 
with,  less  abundantly,  in  several  towns  of  the  north- 
eastern corner  of  France,  although  in  the  majority  of 
cases  already  reduced  in  extent  by  fires  and  reconstruc- 
tion.    Yet,  here  and  there,  little  patronised  by  art- 
critics,  there  remained  precious  relics  of  it,  such  as  the 
solemn  and  stately  Place  Ducale  of  Charleville,  with 
its    wall    of    high-roofed    seventeenth-century   houses. 
Charleville,  now  in  the  deepest  segment  of  the  enemy's 
occupation  of  France,  may  or  may  not  still  exist ;   it  is 
difficult  to  obtain  any  information.     But  of  this  Flemish, 
or  Spanish,  style  of  sixteenth-century  domestic  archi- 
tecture, Arras  was  the  principal  example  left  in  France ; 
and  as  our  taste  became  more  and  more  emancipated 
from  a  servilely  exclusive  admiration  of  Gothic,  Arras 
would  more  and  more  have  been  appreciated  as  one  of 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     87 

the  jewels  of  Europe.  It  may  safely  be  said  that  Arras 
was  destroyed  before  the  world  had  quite  waked  up  to 
a  sense  of  the  treasure  it  was  neglecting. 

Before  the  war  of  1870,  Arras  must  have  been  in  its 
own  way  one  of  the  most  perfect  things  in  Europe,  for 
it  was  snugly  enclosed  in  the  admirable  double  line  of 
fortifications  built  by  Vauban  in  1670.  These  were 
destroyed  after  the  peace,  and  their  ruin  gave  the 
external  view  of  Arras  a  slovenly  and  dingy  appearance. 
But  within  the  crumbled  cincture  of  fortifications  the 
little  city  was  perfect  until  the  summer  of  1914. 
Arras  is  slightly  raised  above  the  vast  plain  of  the 
southern  Artois ;  it  was  the  Nemetacum  of  the  Atrebates, 
a  stronghold  from  the  very  earliest  ages  of  history. 
There  has  been  an  unbroken  line  of  bishops  of  Arras 
for  more  than  fourteen  hundred  years.  Although  it  had 
undergone  bitter  vicissitudes,  of  which  the  worst  was 
its  capture  by  storm,  and  complete  depopulation,  by 
Louis  XI,  in  1479 — when  he  destroyed  the  very  name, 
and  re-colonised  Arras  under  the  title  of  Franchise — 
yet  it  had  retained,  or  since  the  fifteenth  century  re- 
gained, its  appearance  of  romantic  unity.  In  the  other 
towns  of  that  district,  in  Valenciennes,  for  instance,  or 
Douai,  or  even  Cambrai,  a  house  here  and  there,  or  a 
cluster  of  buildings,  may  preserve  the  Hispano-Flemish 
character,  but  the  tourist  has  to  "  make  believe  "  a  great 
deal  to  conjure  up  a  relative  antiquity.  But  in  Arras 
the  illusion  was  complete,  the  evidence  of  ancient  state 
abundant. 

The  centre  of  attraction  was  the  Belfry,  built  in  1554, 


88  Inter  Arma 


which  soared  up,  the  loftiest  of  its  kind  in  France,  from 
the  heart  of  the  Upper  Town.  The  way  to  visit  Arras, 
so  as  to  enjoy  the  exquisite  impression  of  its  ripe  and 
warm  beauty,  was  to  make  for  the  Belfry  by  pushing  up 
to  the  pleasant  Jardin  Saint  Vaast,  where  a  nucleus 
was  formed  by  the  bishop's  palace,  the  cathedral,  and 
the  Library-Museum.  Thence  winding  lanes,  so  narrow 
as  to  darken  midday,  led  to  the  Petite  Place,  the  western 
end  of  which  was  almost  closed  by  the  huge  bulk  of  the 
Hotel  de  Ville.  Behind  this  magnificent  obstacle  the 
square  expanded,  and  revealed  a  complete  series  of 
houses  built  during  the  Austrian  occupation,  before 
1654,  when  Spanish  taste  ruled  in  domestic  architecture. 
This  was  surprising  enough,  but  a  narrow  lane  at  right 
angles  from  the  top  of  the  Petite  Place  brought  the 
wanderer  abruptly  out  into  the  Grande  Place,  which 
was  more  amazing  still.  One  had  here  the  illusion  of 
being  transplanted  to  the  scene  of  one  of  Callot's  topo- 
graphical engravings.  The  Grande  Place  was  the  most 
untouched  example  of  its  kind  in  Western  Europe,  a 
huge  open  space,  without  monuments,  unpaved  to  the 
doorsteps  of  the  houses,  surrounded  by  arcades  that 
rested  on  rude  stone  pillars,  and  diversified  along  the 
sky-line  by  an  endless  series  of  graceful  and  fantastic 
gables.  These,  and  the  ancient  houses  of  the  tortuous 
and  exiguous  Rue  St.  Gery,  leading  out  of  the  right  side 
of  the  Petite  Place,  comprised,  with  the  H6tel  de  Ville, 
the  city's  real  artistic  wealth,  which  did  not  consist  in 
its  churches.  The  beauty  and  value  of  Arras  were 
civic. 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     89 

At  the  end  of  August  1914,  after  the  battles  of 
Charleroi  and  Mons,  the  German  army  swept  in  a  south- 
westerly direction  through  the  north  of  France.  Its 
right  wing  passed,  almost  without  meeting  any  resistance, 
through  the  Nord  and  the  Pas  de  Calais,  pausing  on  the 
night  of  September  5  in  the  valley  of  the  Scarf e,  under 
the  dilapidated  walls  of  Arras,  which  the  Germans 
entered  next  morning.  The  French,  in  retreating,  had 
removed  all  men  of  military  age,  and  the  Germans 
found  only  a  sad  multitude  of  women,  children,  and 
aged  men.  They  stayed  in  Arras  three  days,  disgracing 
themselves  by  a  good  deal  of  pillage,  but  not  of  murder, 
nor  did  they  destroy  or  injure  any  building.  They  left 
the  city  on  September  9,  and  they  did  not  reappear  until 
after  the  battle  of  the  Marne.  The  combat  went  on 
raging  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Arras  for  three  or  four 
weeks,  but  the  town  was  never  the  scene  of  actual 
hostilities.  The  enemy  hoped  to  recapture  it,  and  their 
forces  swayed  to  and  fro  in  its  direction;  sometimes, 
even,  their  sallies  brought  them  quite  close  to  it,  but 
there  were  no  combatants  in  Arras  itself.  But  where 
the  Germans  showed  a  temper  of  extraordinary  malignity 
was  in  their  conduct  when  they  found  themselves  finally 
being  pushed  away  out  of  the  Arras  district,  in  the 
direction  of  Vimy  and  Lens.  It  was  then,  and  not  till 
then,  that  they  deliberately  directed  their  siege  artillery 
against  the  city. 

It  must  never  be  forgotten,  in  the  eternal  blazon  of 
Germany's  misdeeds,  that  their  army  bombarded  Arras 
uselessly,  even  extravagantly,  for  no  military  purpose, 


90  Inter  Arma 


but  as  an  act  of  vengeance  in  the  rage  of  defeat.  On 
October  6,  at  9  a.m.,  there  was  not  a  single  soldier  of  the 
Allies  in  any  part  of  Arras.  The  Germans,  although  they 
had  nothing  to  fear  and  because  they  had  no  longer 
anything  to  gain,  positively  delayed  their  own  action 
in  order  to  indulge  their  spite.  The  first  shell  was 
deliberately  aimed  at  the  majestic  Belfry,  which  soared 
into  the  autumn  sky,  topped  with  its  ducal  crown,  and 
on  the  very  summit  a  colossal  ramping  lion  carrying  a 
pennon.  Into  the  morning  air  its  three  great  bronze 
bells  were  ringing  its  famous  carillon  of  1434.  Although, 
in  its  altitude  of  seventy-five  metres,  dominating  all 
the  country  round,  the  substantial  Belfry  offered  an 
obvious  aim,  the  German  artillerymen  failed  at  first  to 
hit  it,  and  then  they  turned  to  the  H6tel  de  Ville. 
They  soon  pierced  its  roof  and  smashed  the  delicate, 
highly  decorated  facade.  It  is  said  that  one  thousand 
shells  fell  in  Arras  that  first  day.  The  Germans  re- 
directed their  attention  to  the  Belfry,  which  long 
resisted,  but  fell  at  the  sixty-ninth  blow  that  struck  it, 
and  littered  the  Petite  Place  with  confused  ruin.  Then 
the  cannonade  abruptly  ceased,  as  though  upon  this  act 
of  destruction  should  follow  in  the  German  camp  a 
period  of  gratulation  and  rest. 

The  firing  presently  began  again.  The  aim  of  the 
German  guns  had  now  become  extremely  accurate,  and 
it  was  quite  obvious  that  they  were  acting  on 
a  deliberate  system.  They  completely  destroyed 
the  houses  of  the  Petite  Place,  and  then  those  of  the 
Grande  Place,  which  were  fired  at  day  after  day  until 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     91 

nothing  remained  but  a  shapeless  dust-heap.  They 
concentrated  their  attention  on  the  whole  line  of  the 
Rue  St.  Gery  and  wiped  it  out  of  existence.  For  a 
week  the  cannonade  did  not  cease.  On  October  7, 
that  is  to  say  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  attack,  the 
bishop  reported  to  the  French  Government  that  his 
cathedral  was  uninhabitable  and  that  the  church  of 
St.  Jean  Baptiste  was  eviscerated.  Of  these  buildings, 
the  most  notable  of  an  ecclesiastical  order  in  Arras, 
nothing  but  unrecognisable  rubbish  was  left  a  few  days 
later.  We  must  not  exaggerate,  even  in  our  indigna- 
tion, and  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  art  was  made 
much  the  poorer  by  the  devastation  of  the  churches  of 
Arras.  The  cathedral  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Vaast  had, 
to  be  frank,  no  architectural  value ;  it  was  built  on  the 
site  of  the  cathedral  demolished  at  the  Revolution,  and 
1833  was  a  bad  moment  in  French  architecture.  St. 
Jean  Baptiste  had  been  a  fine,  rather  late  Gothic  church, 
but  had  been  spoiled  by  tasteless  restoration.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  H6tel  de  Ville,  which  was  built  by 
Carron  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  was  one  of 
the  finest  edifices  of  its  class  in  the  country.  It  was 
extraordinarily  rich  in  surface  ornament,  which  had  been 
effectively  restored.  As  a  proof  of  the  way  in  which 
Arras  was  taken  by  surprise,  it  is  said  that  no  effort 
had  been  made  to  remove  to  a  place  of  safety  the 
archives  of  the  city,  which  were  stored  in  the  Palais 
de  Saint  Vaast.  These  are  understood  to  be  completely 
destroyed,  together  with  the  manuscripts  and  painted 
missals  which  enjoyed  a  certain  celebrity. 


92  Inter  Arma 


It  is  worth  while  to  remember  that  the  German 
general  in  command,  mildly  brought  to  book  by  some 
of  his  own  countrymen  for  his  unprovoked  outrage  on 
Arras,  replied,  in  Der  Tag :  "  My  troops  and  I  owe 
no  explanation  to  any  one ;  we  have  nothing  to  justify, 
nothing  to  excuse." 

The  world  of  Paris  nourished  a  peculiar  sentiment  of 
affection  for  the  romantic  little  town  of  Senlis,  in  the 
He  de  France.  "  O  ma  blanche  Senlis,  la  plus  douce 
a  nommer,"  a  French  poet  has  sung,  and  if  any  place 
divided  his  loyalty  with  Senlis,  it  could  only  be  the 
delicious  La  Ferte-Milon.  But  there  was  really  no 
rival  to  the  Lily  of  the  He  de  France  in  the  hearts  of 
Parisians,  who  could  just  include  its  delicate  perfection 
in  the  scope  of  a  not  too  tiring  day's  excursion.  The 
present  writer  remembers,  in  all  his  manifold  wanderings 
over  the  fair  fields  of  France,  nothing  more  enchanting, 
nothing  of  a  more  phantasmal  beauty,  than  the  ascent 
of  Senlis  as  one  approached  it  along  the  straight  white 
road  running  almost  exactly  westward  from  Crepy-en- 
Valois,  the  spire  of  the  cathedral  soaring  in  the  sun- 
shine. It  seemed  to  spring  out  of  the  dark  embattled 
mass  of  the  old  Roman  ramparts,  with  their  sixteen 
towers,  and  inside  the  fold  of  them  the  royal  castle 
of  the  twelfth  century.  There  was  another  lightness, 
another  elegance,  about  the  lovely  town  as  it  rose  before 
the  visitor,  when  he  viewed  it  from  the  south  across  the 
winding  and  troubled  waters  of  the  Nonette,  but  from 
every  point  of  view  it  was  chiefly  its  incomparable 
cathedral  to  which  it  owed  its  beauty.  It  was  "  le 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     93 

beau  doigt  de  Senlis,"  pointing  to  the  sky,  that  lifted 
the  heart  to  ecstasy. 

On  close  inspection,  the  cathedral  lost  nothing  of  its 
distinctive  charm.  It  dates  from  the  year  1155,  and  is 
acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the  finest  examples  surviving 
of  Early  Gothic.  It  had  been  injured,  but  not  spoilt,  by 
some  rash  reconstruction  early  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  main  portal  regaled  the  lingering  eye  by  its  extreme 
richness  in  strange  and  violent  sculpture.  Like  so 
many  great  churches  of  its  class,  a  certain  awkwardness 
was  inevitable  in  the  inequality  of  its  towers,  the  right- 
hand  one  having  never  been  finished.  It  was  the  left- 
hand  tower  which  commanded  the  landscape,  especially 
when  one  came  from  the  direction  of  Crepy-en-Valois; 
it  was,  and  indeed  is,  a  miracle  of  grace  and  delicacy, 
lifting  its  pinnacle  eighty  metres  from  the  pavement. 

It  was  from  Crepy-en-Valois  that  the  marauding 
Germans  came  down  upon  Senlis.  In  the  beginning  of 
September,  the  long  wave  of  Teutonic  invasion  swept 
over  the  north-eastern  frontier  of  the  He  de  France. 
They  had  occupied  Luneville  on  August  28.  Some 
fighting  had  already  gone  on  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Senlis,  when  in  the  early  afternoon  of  September  2  a 
shell  struck  the  spire  of  the  cathedral  and  exploded. 
The  German  guns  were  posted  at  the  outlying  hamlet 
of  Chamont,  and  from  that  point  they  poured,  for  an 
hour  and  a  half,  a  shower  of  shells  upon  the  cathedral. 
This  bombardment  ceased,  but  the  Germans  were  seen 
to  approach  the  town  along  the  Crepy-en-Valois  road. 
The  mayor,  a  M.  Odent,  called  his  municipal  council 


94  Inter  Arma 


around  him,  and  then  dismissed  them,  sitting  alone  in 
the  town  hall  to  await  the  arrival  of  the  enemy.  It 
seems  that,  Senlis  being  an  open  town,  and  its  popula- 
tion entirely  inoffensive,  the  mayor  had  no  serious 
apprehension  of  damage.  What  followed  has  been 
variously  related,  the  confusion  and  terror  of  the  wit- 
nesses tending  to  obscure  the  sequence  of  events.  But, 
as  usual,  a  troop  of  soldier-cyclists  seems  to  have  formed 
the  vanguard  of  the  invaders,  and  these  men  imme- 
diately seized  the  archpriest  of  Senlis,  the  venerable 
Abbe  Dourlent.  They  forced  him  to  take  them  up  to 
the  summit  of  the  cathedral,  from  which  they  pretended 
that  shots  had  been  fired  at  them.  The  Abbe  told 
them  that  he  alone  had  the  key,  and  that  it  had  not 
passed  out  of  his  possession.  Upon  this,  and  in  view  of 
this  proof  of  innocence,  the  Germans  proceeded  to  the 
H6tel  de  Ville,  where  they  found  the  unfortunate  mayor 
seated,  it  is  said,  in  the  act  of  writing  out  a  proclamation 
to  the  citizens.  Him  they  arrested,  and  in  company 
with  several  leading  inhabitants,  took  away  to  Chamont, 
where,  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  all  these  innocent 
civilians  were  murdered  in  cold  blood  at  the  order  of  the 
commanding  officer. 

The  reason  of  the  horrors  of  Senlis  has  never  been 
divulged.  But  the  German  commander  told  the  Abbe 
Dourlent — who  was  imprisoned  at  the  Hotel  du  Grand 
Cerf  and  threatened,  but  whose  life  was  ultimately 
spared — that  he  had  been  ordered  to  make  of  Senlis  "  a 
French  Louvain."  "  Senlis  est  condamnee,"  he  said, 
"  cette  nuit  meme  la  ville  va  etre  entierement  brulee." 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     95 

They  started  systematically  with  the  principal  street 
of  the  town,  the  Rue  de  la  Republique,  a  thoroughfare 
containing  handsome  houses  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  dwellings  of  the  leading  citizens.  With  the  utmost 
calm,  employing  all  the  ingenious  incendiary  con- 
trivances which  they  had  used  in  Belgium,  the  German 
soldiers  passed  along  the  street,  house  by  house,  until 
nearly  the  whole  was  destroyed.  Then,  as  is  conjec- 
tured, other  orders  must  have  arrived  from  headquarters, 
for  the  destruction  of  Senlis  abruptly  ceased.  It  is 
difficult  to  divine  the  reason  of  the  vindictive  violence 
of  the  officer  who  directed  these  outrages.  Senlis  was 
absolutely  harmless,  an  open  town  with  no  French 
soldiers  in  it.  It  seems  to  be  quite  certain  that  no 
civilian  had  made  any  attack  whatever  on  the  invaders. 
The  pretence  that  there  had  been  firing  from  the  summit 
of  the  cathedral  could  not  be  supported  in  the  face  of 
the  Abb6  Dourlent's  explanation,  and  in  fact  seems  to 
have  been  dropped.  The  murder  of  the  hostages  and 
the  burning  of  the  Rue  de  la  Republique  are  therefore 
inexplicable,  and  in  the  whole  war  no  crimes  have  been 
committed  more  senseless  or  more  perfidious. 

The  damage  done  by  shells  to  the  cathedral  was 
considerable,  especially  in  the  upper  regions  of  the  tower. 
Several  of  the  crockets  of  the  spire,  some  of  the  pinnacles, 
the  heads  which  decorated  the  bases  of  these  pinnacles, 
the  balustrade  above  the  main  facade,  a  statue,  a 
gargoyle,  are  mentioned  in  the  official  report  as  having 
been  destroyed.  The  roof  was  penetrated  at  several 
points,  but  on  the  whole  there  seems  to  have  been 


96  Inter  Arma 


nothing  accomplished  on  the  surface  of  the  cathedral 
which  careful  restoration  cannot  render  invisible.  The 
lovely  apparition  of  Senlis  will  continue  to  shine  from 
afar  like  a  lily  and  like  a  lamp.  Evidently,  the  confla- 
gration was  stopped  before  it  reached  the  church  of  St. 
Vincent ;  and  no  bombs  are  recorded  to  have  fallen  on 
the  Abbey  of  St.  Frambourg,  a  noble  fragment  close  to 
the  cathedral.  Each  of  these  buildings  is  of  the  twelfth 
century.  Moreover,  the  winding  street  of  precious 
houses  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  century,  which 
descends  at  the  south  to  the  waters  of  the  Nonette, 
appears  to  be  untouched.  In  short,  Senlis,  after  a 
terrible  alarm,  escaped  as  a  brand  from  the  burning. 

It  is  difficult  to  gain  an  impression  of  the  present  state 
of  Soissons,  which  has  had  the  misfortune  to  lie  on  the 
exact  fighting  line  at  the  point  where  the  curve  between 
Noyon  and  Reims  bulges  nearest  to  Paris.  Its  geogra- 
phical position  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Aisne  has  always 
laid  Soissons  open  to  violent  attack;  during  the  Napo- 
leonic wars  Bliicher's  army  inflicted  serious  damage  on 
it,  and  the  Prussians  were  not  easily  dislodged.  It  was 
besieged  again,  and  occupied  by  the  Russians  in  1815. 
The  existing  town  was  laid  out,  a  quadrilateral  of 
streets  within  ramparts,  after  the  last-mentioned  occu- 
pation, and  it  is  only  the  centre  of  Soissons,  where  the 
cathedral  is  muffled  up  in  ancient  houses,  which  pre- 
serves any  medieval  character.  In  October  1870  the 
Germans  shelled  the  town  for  three  successive  days, 
and  took  it,  but  the  damage  done  on  that  occasion  was 
not  noticeable  a  year  or  two  afterwards,  except  so  far  as 


Desecration  of  French   Monuments     97 

regards  the  splendid  abbey  church  of  St.  Jean-des-Vignes, 
which  was  severely  knocked  about.  This  abbey  is 
of  special  interest  to  us  English,  because  Thomas  a 
Becket  spent  here  nine  years  of  his  exile.  The  Ger- 
man bombardment  of  1870  wounded  the  glorious 
thirteenth-century  fa$ade  of  this  monument,  but  not 
irreparably. 

In  the  present  war,  a  novel  feature  of  attack  was  that 
the  ancient  monuments,  especially  all  ecclesiastical 
buildings  of  great  value,  were  carefully  aimed  at  by 
ihe  enemy  which,  forty-four  years  earlier,  had  shown 
some  ingenuity  in  avoiding  them.  Consequently,  when 
Soissons  was  first  bombarded,  on  the  nights  of  September 
24  and  25,  1914,  the  cathedral  was  deliberately  aimed 
at.  It  was  struck  at  several  points,  the  roofs  were 
pierced,  the  slates  here  and  there  reduced  to  dust.  But 
much  that  was  injured  seems  to  have  been  nineteenth- 
century  restoration,  and  a  fragment  of  the  old  balus- 
trade of  the  main  fa9ade  would  hardly  be  mentioned 
so  prominently  in  the  official  report  if  more  important 
parts  had  been  blown  up.  The  injury  to  St.  Jean- 
des-Vignes  was  more  severe ;  each  of  the  spires  was 
mutilated,  and  some  of  the  delicate  carving  around  the 
windows  chipped.  But  the  bombardment  of  February 
1915  was  much  more  serious.  The  north  side  of  the 
cathedral  was  badly  knocked  about,  and  a  shell, 
penetrating  the  nave,  destroyed  a  pillar  and  strewed  the 
interior  of  the  church  with  debris.  Much  of  the  rich 
thirteenth-century  glass,  precious  as  rubies,  was  smashed. 
Later  attacks  and  defences  can  have  left  Soissons  little 
H 


Inter  Arma 


of  its  wonderful  charm,  which  M.  Andre  Hallays  thus 
immortalised  : 

"  Soissons  is  a  white,  peaceful  and  smiling  city,  which 
lifts  its  tower  and  its  pointed  spires  by  the  banks  of  a 
lazy  river,  in  the  midst  of  a  ring  of  green  hills;  town 
and  landscape  alike  remind  us  of  the  little  pictures  which 
the  illuminators  of  our  old  manuscripts  loved  to  paint. 
Precious  monuments  display  the  whole  history  of  French 
monarchy,  from  the  Merovingian  crypts  of  the  Abbey  of 
St.  Medard  to  the  handsome  hotel  built  just  before  the 
Revolution  for  the  governors  of  the  province.  In  the 
midst  of  narrow  streets  and  little  gardens,  a  magnificent 
cathedral  spreads  the  arms  of  her  great  transept ;  to 
the  north  a  straight  wall  and  a  vast  painted  window; 
to  the  south  the  apse  with  the  delicacy  of  its  marvellous 
arches." 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  all  that  will  survive  of  this  at 
the  close  of  the  present  war  will  be  a  recollection  of 
vanished  beauty. 

Meaux  hardly  deserves  to  be  called  a"  cite  meurtrie," 
because  it  escaped  serious  injury,  yet  its  fate  was  so 
romantic,  and  to  its  terrified  inhabitants  seemed  so 
miraculous,  that  it  demands  particular  attention.  It 
was  the  centre  of  the  wonderful  battle  of  the  Marne, 
and  the  military  critics  are  not  yet  in  unison  as  to  the 
reason  which  led  the  storming  armies  of  the  enemy  to 
pause  in  their  overwhelming  charge  on  Paris,  and  to 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     99 

swerve  aside,  to  their  own  undoing,  in  an  attack  on 
Meaux.  The  result,  at  all  events,  was  abundantly  to 
the  advantage  of  the  Allies,  for  Paris  was  saved  and 
Meaux  itself  was  not  sacrificed.  I  do  not  propose  to 
examine  here  in  military  detail  what  the  French  con- 
tinue to  call  "  le  miracle  de  la  Marne,"  but  I  must 
dwell  a  little  on  the  imminent  danger  run  by  the  beauti- 
ful cathedral  where  Bossuet  reigned,  and  by  the  rare 
monuments  of  his  city.  On  September  2,  1914,  early 
in  the  morning,  the  town  council  announced  that  Meaux 
would  probably  be  occupied  by  the  Germans  in  the  course 
of  that  day,  and  that  the  inhabitants  would  do  well  to 
leave.  The  exodus  began  at  once,  and  as  five-sixths  of 
the  French  population  left,  the  British  army,  in  retreat 
from  Senlis,  entered  the  town  from  the  opposite  side. 
For  seven  days  and  seven  nights,  as  M.  Montorgeuil 
has  put  it,  a  "  silent  and  sepulchral  Meaux,  whose  life 
was  represented  only  by  duty,  charity  and  self-sacrifice, 
listened  to  the  beating  of  its  own  heart,  and  to  the 
noise  of  the  battle  raging  around  it." 

The  peculiar  artistic  attraction  of  Meaux  consists 
in  its  bridge  of  old  flour-mills,  which  forms  a  street  of 
marvellous  medieval  buildings  running  right  across  the 
Marne.  These  mills,  of  various  height,  form  and  colour, 
have  been  cleverly  adapted  inside  to  modern  commercial 
purposes,  but  outside  they  remain  just  what  they  were 
in  Bossuet's  time,  and  long  before  it.  Here  the  wheat 
of  the  golden  fields  of  La  Brie  is  brought  to  be  ground, 
just  as  it  was  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  timbered 


ioo  Inter  Arma 


fagades  of  these  great  mills,  rich  in  red  and  russet  and 
cream-colour,  are  crowned  with  curious  roofs  of  darker 
tone,  and  are  poised  fantastically  on  carven  piers. 
Their  safety  has  been  preserved  by  their  bridge  being 
used  for  the  traffic  of  foot-passengers  only,  the  munici- 
pality having  long  ago  wisely  insisted  that  the  "  Passe- 
relle  des  Moulins"  should  be  treated  as  an  historical 
monument,  the  railway  and  high  road  across  the  Marne 
being  taking  over  a  bridge  parallel  to  and  adjoining  the 
Mill  Bridge.  The  danger  to  those  admirable  structures 
last  autumn  came  in  the  first  instance  from  the  British, 
who  blew  up  the  bridges  as  a  strategic  precaution.  The 
destruction  of  the  Pont  du  Marche  was  very  perilous 
for  the  mills,  since  they  were  peppered  with  fragments 
of  stone  and  metal,  but  happily  no  positive  damage 
was  done.  The  explosion  was  more  serious  in  its  re- 
sults to  the  cathedral,  although  this  was  farther  off. 
It  was  struck  in  ten  different  places,  and  a  paving-stone 
hurled  through  the  roof  of  a  chapel  smashed  in  its  passage 
the  outer  stone  balustrade. 

Meaux  waited  for  the  invader,  isolated  and  without 
information.  It  seemed  certain  that  it  would  be  the 
centre  of  a  battle,  in  the  fluctuation  of  which  enemy 
and  friend  alike  would  contribute  to  its  desolation. 
On  September  6  the  Germans,  who  were  drawn  up  to 
the  east,  at  the  village  of  Germigny-rEveque,  began  to 
bombard  the  cathedral  of  Meaux,  and  already  the  few 
persons  who  still  gathered  round  the  intrepid  bishop 
gave  up  for  lost  the  famous  nave  which  has  been  called 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments      toi 

"  le  plus  lumineux  des  poemes  de  pierre  que  T architec- 
ture du  passe  ait  fait  chanter  a  des  voutes."  Next  day 
the  bombardment  grew  more  serious,  but  the  cathe- 
dral seemed  to  be  protected  by  a  charm ;  not  a  shell 
touched  it.  Next  day,  to  the  amazement  of  the  belea- 
guered city,  the  cannonade  ceased;  the  battle  of  the 
Marne  had  achieved  its  purpose,  and  Meaux,  practically 
uninjured,  was  left  to  recover  its  normal  serenity. 

The  circumstances  of  the  destruction  of  Gerbeviller, 
a  small  town  of  some  1900  inhabitants,  on  the  road 
between  Luneville  and  Nancy,  in  the  Meurthe-et-Moselle, 
have  greatly  inflamed  French  indignation,  but  the  place 
had  no  special  artistic  importance.  Gerbeviller  was  an 
ancient  town  much  tormented  in  successive  wars.  It 
held  rather  a  strong  position  on  the  little  river  Mortagne, 
and  on  August  24,  1914,  it  was  gallantly  defended  by  a 
battalion  of  French  infantry,  who  barricaded  themselves 
on  the  bridge  and  actually  held  up  the  advancing 
Germans  for  twelve  hours.  The  Bavarian  invaders — 
who  are  described  as  horrible  to  look  upon,  "  with  hands 
and  faces  tattooed  with  blue  " — entered  the  town  at 
last  in  a  fury,  and  shot  down  the  inhabitants  like  rabbits. 
They  burned  nearly  all  the  town,  and  when  they  were 
turned  out  again  by  the  French  it  was  found  that  they 
had  completely  destroyed  the  church,  the  castle,  the 
Chapel  Palatine  and  a  house  of  the  fifteenth  century 
which  was  the  pride  of  Gerbeviller.  The  castle,  built 
in  1641,  was  a  museum  of  beautiful  objects  collected 
by  the  Marquis  Camille  de  Lambertye,  who  was 


102  !  Inter  Arma 


Chamberlain  to  the  King  of  Poland.  A  monument 
known  as  the  Labarum,  a  cross  of  stone  with  two 
statuettes  of  saints,  stands  untouched  alone  in  the  midst 
of  the  ruins,  and  this  is  practically  all  that  survives  of 
Gerbeviller. 

We  must  not  forget  that  Paris  itself  has  not  entirely 
escaped  the  shell  of  the  marauding  vandal.  "  That 
pedantic  ferocity  of  scientific  cynicism "  which  Sir 
Robert  Morier  perceived,  forty  years  ago,  would  dis- 
tinguish German  methods  in  their  next  great  war,  was 
exemplified  in  the  attack  on  Notre  Dame  which  was  made 
on  October  n,  1914.  This  was  extremely  ingenious, 
carefully  and  accurately  calculated,  and  was  prevented 
by  a  mere  accident  from  being  horribly  successful.  On 
that  Sunday,  when  the  cathedral  was  crowded  with 
worshippers,  a  taube  which  had  pierced  the  defensive 
zone  of  Paris,  proceeded  with  great  audacity  to  drop 
several  bombs  on  the  building.  One  of  these  shells 
exploded  on  the  west  slope  of  the  roof  of  the  north  tran- 
sept, close  to  the  great  clock,  and  did  a  good  deal  of 
mischief.  The  nearest  bell- turret  was  injured,  and  a 
quantity  of  modern  glass  was  smashed;  several  jobs 
were  provided  for  the  carpenter,  the  slater  and  the 
glazier;  Paris  was  extremely  indignant,  but  from  the 
artistic  point  of  view  no  vital  injury  was  done  to  Notre 
Dame,  although  the  beautiful  fourteenth-century  statue 
of  the  Virgin  was  perilously  near  to  the  scene  of  what 
damage  there  was.  One  bomb,  which  seems  to  have 
been  aimed  at  the  apse  of  the  church,  ricochetted  off 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments     103 

and  exploded  in  flames  in  the  garden  below;   another 
fell  plump  into  the  Seine. 

It  is  very  difficult — it  is  in  many  cases  impossible — 
to  learn  with  any  certainty  what  has  been  the  fate  of 
places  and  monuments  which  lie  behind  the  long  line 
of  the  German  trenches.  It  was  long  before  news 
reached  Paris,  and  then  only  by  an  accident,  of  the 
annihilation  of  Orchies,  the  cause  of  which  is  still  very 
obscure.  This  was  a  small  ancient  town  in  the  depart- 
ment of  the  Nord,  not  far  from  Douai,  which  the 
Germans,  for  some  reason  at  present  quite  unknown, 
saw  fit  to  destroy  in  September  of  last  year.  They 
massacred  the  inhabitants,  and  they  burned  the  town, 
with  its  interesting  Flemish-Spanish  H6tel  de  Ville, 
and  its  fine  old  church,  so  comprehensively  that  it  is 
said  that  not  one  single  building  escaped.  Orchies  was 
a  town  of  nearly  four  thousand  inhabitants.  It  is  not 
possible  to  conjecture  what  vindictive  acts  of  this  kind 
the  invaders  may  have  perpetrated  in  the  department 
of  the  Ardennes,  which  is  the  only  one  which  they  hold 
in  its  entirety.  This  department  had  to  bear  the  full 
brunt  of  their  frenzied  advance  after  Namur  and  Dinant. 
No  trustworthy  news  of  its  condition  has  come  through 
the  lines  to  Paris.  From  the  purely  aesthetic  point  of 
view  we  may  congratulate  ourselves  that  Ardennes  is  one 
of  the  poorest  departments  of  France  in  historical  and 
artistic  monuments.  Lovers  of  the  eccentric  would 
regret  the  very  odd  Romanesque  church  of  Vouziers, 
with  its  beautiful  three-portalled  fa$ade  set  in  the 


104  Inter  Arma 


side  of  a  building  of  the  shape  of  a  portmanteau.  The 
church  of  St.  Nicolas  in  Rethel  has  some  architectural 
merit,  and  we  have  already  spoken  of  the  Flemish  Place 
Ducale  of  Charleville,  but  with  these  exceptions  there 
is  little  in  the  Ardennes  to  be  anxious  about.  Accord- 
ing to  M.  Vachon  all  that  is  valuable  in  Rethel  is  de- 
stroyed, but  the  curtain  which  hides  these  north-eastern 
towns  is  scarcely  penetrable.  Clermont-en-Argonne, 
where  one  stone  is  no  longer  set  upon  another,  contained 
in  its  charming  little  fifteenth-century  church  a  statue 
by  the  great  sculptor  of  the  French  Renaissance,  Ligier 
Richier.  What  has  become  of  it  ?  What  has  been  the 
fate  of  the  unrivalled  collection  of  pastels  by  Latour 
which  was  the  pride  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  of  St. 
Quentin,  a  town  now  far  back  behind  the  German 
trenches  ? 

It  appears  that  Noyon,  with  its  incomparable  basilica, 
though  on  the  very  line  of  war,  is  still  intact.  At 
Compiegne  and  at  Chantilly,  occupied  in  the  first  week 
of  September,  no  damage,  beyond  some  pilfering  of 
bric-d-brac,  was  committed.  Chateau-Thierry,  though 
marked  out  for  conflagration,  escaped  as  by  a  miracle. 
The  total  destruction  of  Sermaize-les-Bains  was  an  act 
of  hideous  wickedness,  but  had  no  aesthetic  significance. 
The  pages  of  M.  Vachon's  recital  are  full  of  painful 
detail  of  the  reckless  and  ruthless  incendiarism  which 
has  swallowed  up  scores  of  small  towns  and  villages  in 
Lorraine,  and  only  now,  after  more  than  a  year  of 
tyranny,  are  the  evil  deeds  of  the  invaders  beginning  to 


Desecration  of  French  Monuments      105 

be  recorded.  If  any  one  doubts  what  a  martyrdom  the 
fair  provinces  of  the  east  suffered  last  autumn,  let  him 
but  turn  to  the  heartrending  recital  of  the  reports  of 
the  Academic  des  Beaux-Arts  de  France.  Surely  there 
must  come  a  day  of  reckoning  for  Germany. 

October  1915. 


THE    NAPOLEONIC   WARS   IN 
ENGLISH   POETRY 


THE    NAPOLEONIC   WARS   IN 
ENGLISH    POETRY 

IT  has  always  been  noted  in  our  history  that  the 
engagement  of  the  British  nation  in  important  warfare 
does  not  have  the  result  of  stimulating  the  British  poets 
to  immediate  celebration  of  battles.  There  are  many 
causes  which  may  be  cited  as  inducing  this  silence,  and 
some  of  the  most  powerful  of  them  were  suggested  by 
Professor  Gilbert  Murray  in  a  very  remarkable  address 
delivered  before  the  Academic  Committee.  In  the 
following  pages  I  shall  not  endeavour  to  exaggerate 
the  value  of  the  verse  which  was  put  forth  in  England, 
on  the  subject  of  the  war,  during  our  great  struggle 
with  Napoleon,  but  shall  be  content  to  disengage  it, 
perhaps  for  the  first  time,  from  the  mass  of  work  more 
abundantly,  and  often  with  a  brighter  inspiration, 
produced  by  the  various  poets  of  that  age.  Thus 
reserved,  with  everything  round  it  winnowed  away, 
it  may  appear  more  significant,  and  at  all  events  more 
bulky,  than  is  usually  admitted  or  supposed.  Our 
critics  have  been  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  the  great 
wars  of  a  century  ago  did  not  interest  our  poets.  It 
will  be  easy  to  show  that  this  was  not  the  case,  although 

it  is  probable  that  we  shall  find  that  none  of  them 

109 


i  io  Inter  Arma 


contrived  to  give  a  wholly  articulate  expression  to  their 
anxiety  and  their  exultation. 

The  Classical  School  of  the  eighteenth  century  had 
included  in  its  formulas  a  recognised  method  of  treating 
warfare  metrically.  The  nations  of  Europe  had  been 
incessantly  fighting  one  another,  and  England  had 
constantly  been  involved  in  struggles  which  an  alliance 
now  intensified  and  a  convention  now  alleviated.  Our 
prolonged  and  sporadic  expeditions  into  strange  tropic 
harbours  and  among  fabulous  races  had  an  element 
of  romance  and  wonder  which  it  is  very  remarkable 
that  no  English  poet  took  up  and  recorded,  even  if  only 
in  the  stiff  and  cautious  imagery  then  admissible.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  no  bard  was  inspired  by 
Trichinopoly  in.  1752,  or  even  by  Quebec  in  1759. 
Martinique  fired  no  imagination,  and  Ticonderoga  had 
to  wait  more  than  a  century  unsung.  The  only  ex- 
ception was  Vernon's  expedition  against  Cartagena  in 
1739.  This  event  stirred  the  imagination  of  a  number 
of  bards,  and  in  particular  of  Thomson.  It  led,  with 
little  doubt,  to  the  composition  of  "  Rule  Britannia," 
which,  in  spite  of  its  bluster  and  its  bad  grammar,  is 
a  specimen  of  patriotic  lyricism  not  to  be  despised. 
Cartagena  was  also  the  theme  of  Glover's  "  Admiral 
Hosier's  Ghost,"  the  best  naval  ballad  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  its  treatment  in  "  The  Seasons  "  will  not 
be  forgotten. 

What  the  Classical  School  did  best  in  the  field  of 
military  poetry,  however,  was  the  elegy  of  pathetic 
resignation  over  the  death  of  individual  warriors.  In 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English  Poetry     1 1 1 

this  class  Collins'  "  Ode  for  1746  "  and  Gray's  elegy  on 
Sir  William  Williams  of  the  "  fine  Vandyck  head  "  are 
highly  polished  examples.  The  sentimental  relation 
of  the  wounded  or  exhausted  soldier  to  his  home  and 
family  was  described  effectively  by  Burns  and  by 
Bloomfield.  There  was  the  rollicking  treatment  of  a 
naval  theme  of  which  "  Black-eyed  Susan  "  is  the  type. 
Greatly  commended  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century  were  the  martial  ballads  of  Thomas  Penrose, 
the  doleful  incumbent  of  Beckington-cum-Standerwick, 
who  imitated  Gray  in  stanzas  which  described  how 

"  Faintly  bray'd  the  battle's  roar, 
Distant  down  the  hollow  wind ; 
Panting  terror  fled  before, 

Wounds  and  death  were  left  behind," 

and  how  ghastly  "  Edgar  "  looked,  half-buried  with  the 
hostile  dead.  And  finally  there  was  the  conventional 
battle-composition,  of  which  the  culminating  example, 
the  towering  masterpiece,  was  Erasmus  Darwin's 
"  Battle  of  Minden,"  which  our  grandmothers  were 
accustomed  to  recite  at  school  with  the  applause  of 
listening  parents — 

"  So  stood  Eliza  on  the  wood-crowned  height, 
O'er  Minden's  plain,  spectatress  of  the  fight, 
Sought  with  bold  eye  amid  the  bloody  strife 
Her  dearer  self,  the  partner  of  her  life ; 
From  hill  to  hill  the  rushing  host  pursued, 
And  viewed  his  banner,  or  believed  she  viewed." 

We  dare  not  continue  the  stupendous  narrative,  but 
we  must  note  that  this  appeared  to  our  ancestors  the 


1 12  Inter  Arma 


best  and  indeed  the  only  legitimate  type  of  military 
epos,  and  that  its  tradition  affected  every  writer  who 
attempted  to  picture  warfare  long  after  the  romantic 
method  had  displaced  the  classic.  It  was  supposed 
to  be  romantic,  and  we  have  only  to  turn  to  Marmion 
to  see  that  Clara  at  Flodden  is  the  younger  and 
somewhat  less  maniacal  sister  of  Eliza  of  the  red  and 
rolling  eye. 

Between  the  purely  Classical  School  and  the  revival 
of  poetry  there  is,  perhaps,  but  a  single  example  of 
war-poetry  that  need  be  mentioned.  Yet  honour  is 
due  to  Sir  William  Jones,  whose  "  Alcaic  Ode  "  reflects 
the  stubborn  courage  and  loyal  support  of  the  weak 
which  England's  attitude  in  the  isolation  of  1781  called 
forth.  It  has  a  noble  ring,  and  is  too  little  known — 

"  Such  was  this  heaven-loved  isle, 
Than  Lesbos  fairer,  and  the  Cretan  shore  ! 

No  more  shall  Freedom  smile? 
Shall  Britons  languish,  and  be  men  no  more  ? 

Since  all  must  life  resign, 
Those  sweet  rewards  which  decorate  the  brave 

'Tis  folly  to  decline, 
And  steal  inglorious  to  the  silent  grave." 

It  has  been  necessary  to  indicate  thus  rapidly  what 
were  the  forms  dedicated  to  the  celebration  of  warlike 
events  by  literary  tradition  down  to  the  advent  of 
Napoleon.  If  that  event,  and  the  military  spectacle 
involved  in  it,  had  been  delayed  for  ten  or  fifteen  years, 
the  texture  of  the  English  war-poetry  inspired  by  it 
would  be  of  a  different  character.  We  are  accustomed 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English   Poetry     1 1 3 

to  date  the  revolution  in  our  national  verse  by  a  refer- 
ence to  the  publication  of  Lyrical  Ballads,  in  the  autumn 
of  1798  or,  more  exactly,  to  the  appearance  of  "  Tintern 
Abbey  "  in  that  volume.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
not  only  were  the  non-Lakist  poets  slow  in  accepting 
the  Wordsworthian  formulary,  but  it  was  only  in  certain 
cases  and  in  particular  classes  of  poetical  work  that  the 
Lakists  themselves  adopted  it.  Wordsworth's  famous 
preface  of  1800  repudiated  the  use  of  "  poetic  diction  " 
and  "  falsehood  of  description,"  and  stated  that  he  had 
found  it  "  expedient  "  to  abstain  from  the  use  of  several 
conventions  "  which  have  been  foolishly  repeated  by 
bad  poets."  But  Wordsworth  himself,  in  pieces  like 
"  Artegal  and  Elidure  "  and  even  "  Vaudracour  and 
Julia,"  in  which  it  was  necessary  to  record  action  in 
solemn  numbers,  fell  back  to  a  surprising  extent  upon 
the  use  of  the  conventional  "  poetic  diction  "  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  It  is  not  until  we  come  down 
to  Keats,  who  lies  beyond  the  war  frontier  altogether, 
that  we  find  the  classic  diction  completely  abandoned. 
It  will  presently  be  seen  how  necessary  it  is  to  bear  this 
fact  in  mind. 

Until  Napoleon  suppressed  the  bread  riots  in  Paris, 
in  October  1795,  his  figure  was  generally  unobserved  on 
this  side  of  the  Channel.  He  was  watched  with  gathering 
attention  during  his  Italian  campaigns,  but  he  was  no 
object  of  popular  interest  until  the  summer  of  1798, 
when,  urged  by  the  Directory  to  attack  England,  he 
took  the  route  of  Egypt  for  that  purpose.  By  August, 
when  his  fleet  was  destroyed  by  Nelson  in  Aboukir  Bay, 


114  Inter  Arma 


he  had  become  the  centre  of  excited  observation. 
Wordsworth,  to  whom  our  declaration  of  war  upon  the 
new  French  Republic  five  years  previously  had  given  the 
greatest  shock  which  his  moral  nature  had  ever  received, 
gradually  and  after  painful  revulsions  of  feeling  aban- 
doned his  enthusiasm  for  France.  He  had  always  been 
much  interested  in  the  military  life,  and  every  student 
of  "  The  Prelude  "  must  remember  the  extraordinary 
episode  of  the  soldier  he  met  by  Winander  side — 

"  Long  were  his  arms,  pallid  his  hands;  his  mouth 
Looked  ghastly  in  the  moonlight," 

— from  whom  Wordsworth  imbibed  such  strange 
instruction  in  military  wisdom.  His  sonnets  dedicated 
to  "  National  Independence  and  Liberty "  prove  the 
ecstasy  with  which  his  soul  as  a  very  young  man 
accepted  the  struggle  of  the  nations  in  their  greatest 
expectancy.  He  was  purged  of  moral  dross  by  the  vital 
energy  around  him — 

"  the  fife  of  war 

Was  then  a  spirit-stirring  sound  indeed, 
A  blackbird's  whistle  in  a  budding  grove." 

But  the  stupendous  march  of  events  roused  no  lyrical 
expression  from  lips  so  ready  to  communicate  emotion 
in  song. 

In  August  1802,  when  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  of 
Amiens  had  quieted  Europe  for  a  moment,  Wordsworth 
once  more  visited  France,  and  now  for  the  first  time  he 
occupied  his  verse  with  the  current  state  of  affairs  in 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English   Poetry     1 1 5 

that  country.  At  Calais  he  paused  to  express  his  anger 
at  the  servility  of  the  French,  who  had  just  made 
Bonaparte  Consul  for  life,  and  who 

"  With  first-fruit  offerings  crowd  to  bend  the  knee 
.  .  .  before  the  new-born  Majesty." 

His  famous  third  Calais  sonnet  contrasted  this  crafty 
servility  with  the  sublime  senselessness  of  republican 
joy  in  July  1790 ;  in  his  fourth  sonnet  he 

"  grieved  for  Bonaparte,  with  a  vain 
And  an  unthinking  grief," 

and  insisted  that 

"  'Tis  not  in  battles  that  from  youth  we  train 
The  Governor  who  must  be  wise  and  good." 

The  splendid  sonnets  on  the  extinction  of  the  Venetian 
Republic  and  on  the  subjugation  of  Switzerland  appear 
to  have  been  composed  in  1802.  In  the  whole  of  this 
group  of  poems  which  revolve  around  the  subject  of 
warfare  without  directly  engaging  upon  it,  Wordsworth 
contemplates  Napoleon  in  his  successive  feats  of  arms 
with  growing  indignation  and  apprehension,  and  when 
we  reach,  in  1803,  the  various  pieces  dealing  with  the 
expected  invasion,  some  of  them  among  the  most 
majestic  in  the  language,  we  cease  to  deny  to  Wordsworth 
the  title  of  a  war-poet.  At  the  present  moment,  when 
the  question  of  a  raid  upon  this  country  by  an  alien 
enemy  is  the  subject  of  general  discussion,  we  cannot 


1 1 6  Inter  Arma 


but  be  moved  to  read  the  extraordinary  lines  which 
Wordsworth  wrote  "  in  anticipation  "  in  October  1803 — 

"  Shout,  for  a  mighty  victory  is  won  ! 
On  British  ground  the  Invaders  are  laid  low; 
The  breath  of  Heaven  has  drifted  them  like  snow, 
And  left  them  lying  in  the  silent  sun, 
Never  to  rise  again  !     The  work  is  done. 
Come  forth,  ye  old  men,  now  in  peaceful  show 
And  greet  your  sons  !  drums  beat  and  trumpets  blow  .  .   . 
Clap,  infants,  clap  your  hands  !     Divine  must  be 
That  triumph,  when  the  very  worst,  the  pain 
And  even  the  prospect  of  our  brethren  slain, 
Hath  something  in  it  that  the  heart  enjoys." 

On  another  occasion  the  pacific  Wordsworth,  walking 
by  starlight  along  the  shores  of  Grasmere,  rejoiced 
to  see  "  the  ruddy  crest  of  Mars,"  and  felt  his  heart 
contract  with  joy  in  the  splendour  of  fighting  "  by  just 
revenge  inflamed."  His  memory  went  back  to  the  time 
when  "  a  band  of  military  officers,"  then  his  friends,  now 
his  national  foes,  had  been  "  the  chief  of  my  associates 
in  Paris,"  and  the  fever  of  soldierly  ferment  once  more 
inflamed  his  cheeks. 

Coleridge,  in  spite  of  his  having  so  remarkably  enlisted 
in  the  King's  regiment  of  Light  Dragoons,  had  no  love 
either  of  soldiers  or  of  horses.  His  contributions  to  the 
poetry  of  the  Great  War  were  meagre,  and  were  con- 
fined to  the  period  of  his  youth.  When  he  was  asked 
to  record  some  impressions  of  the  fighting,  he  surprisingly 
replied,  "  I  have  no  wish  to  qualify  myself  for  the  office 
of  Historiographer  to  the  King  of  Hell."  The  seventh 
strophe  of  the  "  Ode  on  the  departing  Year  " — 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English  Poetry     117 

"  Not  yet  enslaved,  not  wholly  vile, 
O  Albion  !     O  my  Mother  Isle  !  " 

— is  the  earliest  expression  in  verse  of  our  splendid 
isolation.  In  1798  the  perilous  position  of  England 
extracted  from  Coleridge,  who  saw  Somersetshire  treated 
like  La  Vendee,  the  wild  eclogue  called  "  Fire,  Famine, 
and  Slaughter."  His  admirable  ode,  "  France,"  and 
the  less  admirable  but  very  curious  "  Fears  in  Soli- 
tude "  belong  to  the  spring  of  the  same  year.  In  April 
Coleridge  was  suffering  agonies  of  apprehension,  and 
his  outpourings  showed  little  confidence  in  the  military 
resources  of  England — 

"  Spare  us  yet  awhile, 

Father  and  God  !    O  !    spare  us  yet  awhile  ! 
Oh  !    let  not  English  women  drag  their  flight 
Fainting  beneath  the  burden  of  their  babes." 

The  prayer  was  heard,  but  the  attitude  of  the  suppliant 
lacked  Wordsworth's  dignity.  During  this  time  of 
anxiety  Coleridge  was  unnerved  by  the  dread  of  invasion ; 
"  my  repeated  night-yells,"  he  says,  "  have  made  me 
a  nuisance  in  my  own  house."  In  "  The  British  Strip- 
ling's War  Song,"  written  a  year  later,  the  poet  grew 
more  daring — 

"  My  own  shout  of  onset,  in  the  heart  of  my  trance, 

How  oft  it  awakes  me  from  visions  of  glory ; 
When  I  meant  to  have  leapt  on  the  Hero  of  France, 

And  have  dashed  him  to  earth,  pale  and  breathless  and  gory." 

Over  the  bad  epigrams  which  Coleridge  perpetrated  at 
the  time  of  the  Peace  a  veil  should  be  drawn,  and  on  the 


1 1 8  Inter  Arma 


whole  his  performances  as  a  war-poet  are  not  above  the 
level  of  his  prowess  as  a  Light  Dragoon. 

The  rigid  Southey  was  not  affected,  as  was  his  softer 
friend,  by  the  terrors  of  possible  invasion,  but  he  was 
obsessed  with  indignation  at  the  practices  of  the  press- 
gang.  From  Westbury,  in  this  same  year  1798,  he  sent 
forth  a  naval  poem,  called  "  The  Victory/'  which  is  a 
chain  of  stiffly  expressed  but  pathetic  reflections  on 
the  horrors  of  being  carried  off  from  home  and  wife  and 
children  by ' '  lawful  violence/ '  This  abuse  much  affected 
Southey,  and  it  tinges  all  the  studies  of  naval  warfare 
in  his  "  English  Eclogues  "  of  1799.  He  takes  a  grim 
joy  in  the  story  of  the  woman  who  tied  her  nightcap 
round  her  husband's  head,  and  let  herself  be  whisked 
away  by  the  press-gang.  In  his  strong  division  of 
feeling  with  regard  to  the  Republic,  Southey  was  not 
prepared  to  express  himself  with  martial  lyricism,  and 
it  was  not  until  the  Peninsular  campaign  was  in  full 
progress  that  he  was  interested  in  the  war.  It  was  not 
until  Waterloo  that  he  was  deeply  moved  by  it. 

Meanwhile,  as  it  is  supposed  in  1806,  Wordsworth  was 
inspired  to  compose  the  "  Character  of  the  Happy 
Warrior,"  over  which  we  must  pause  a  moment,  since 
it  is,  above  all  doubt,  the  most  important  English 
contribution  made  to  the  poetry  of  warfare  during 
Napoleonic  times.  We  must  take  this  long  gnomic  poem 
in  connexion  with  the  series  of  sonnets  to  National 
Independence  and  Liberty  which  have  already  been 
mentioned,  for  it  is  the  culmination  and  crown  of  them. 
The  death  of  Nelson  at  the  battle  of  Trafalgar  had 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English   Poetry     119 

completely  reconciled  Wordsworth  to  the  attitude  of 
England  towards  France,  an  attitude  which  had 
awakened  in  him  at  first  only  sentiments  of  shame, 
and  then  of  dubious  acquiescence.  The  poet  had  not 
yet  attained  the  height  of  patriotic  serenity  which 
breathes  through  the  arduous  and  Roman  pages  of  "  The 
Convention  of  Cintra,"  but  he  could  now  contemplate 
the  shattering  of  the  French  navy  without  any  of  those 
"  ghost-like  hauntings  of  shame  "  which  had  afflicted 
him  in  1803.  He  could  share  the  British  ecstasy;  he 
thrilled  to  the  immortal  signal,  "  England  expects 
every  man  to  do  his  duty."  The  Happy  Warrior  is 
not  a  direct  portrait  of  Nelson,  for  Wordsworth  still 
retained  some  puritanical  objections  to  the  admiral's 
supposed  private  character,  but  it  is  a  study  of  exalted 
devotion  to  the  loftiest  principles  of  national  chivalry, 
as  exemplified  by  Nelson.  The  Happy  Warrior  is  one 

"  Who,  doomed  to  go  in  company  with  Pain, 
And  Fear,  and  Bloodshed,  miserable  train  ! 
Turns  his  necessity  to  glorious  gain," 

and  who,  in  the  hour  of  severest  tension, 

"  Is  happy  as  a  Lover,  and  attired 
With  sudden  brightness,  like  a  Man  inspired." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on  the  majestic  felicities  of  a 
poem  which  is  one  of  the  noblest  that  ever  passed  from 
the  pen  of  a  godlike  prophet.  It  is,  in  the  intellectual 
sphere,  hardly  less  dominant  than  Trafalgar  or  Waterloo 
in  the  more  eminent  sphere  of  action. 


I2o  Inter  Arma 


After  this,  it  must  be  confessed  that  our  decline  to 
less  heroic  levels  is  rapid  and  final.  The  actual  presence 
of  English  and  French  forces  contending  on  the  soil 
of  his  beloved  Portugal  stirred  the  interest  of  Southey 
at  last.  His  "  Inscriptions,"  a  section  of  his  work 
which  has  few  readers  to-day,  will  on  examination  be 
found  to  contain  a  sort  of  broken  record  of  the  Peninsular 
War,  in  painfully  tuneless  blank  verse.  Here  are  tumid 
celebrations  of  Vimiero,  Coruna,  Talavera,  The  Douro, 
Busaco,  and  Torres  Vedras.  Wordsworth  was  interested 
in  the  adventures  of  Palafox  and  the  Spanish  guerillas, 
and  felt  drawn  to  write  a  series  of  sonnets  about  "  noble 
Biscay ans  "  and  "  the  indignation  of  a  high-minded 
Spanish,"  but  they  are  among  the  most  stilted  of  his 
compositions.  From  these  petrified  curiosities  we  turn 
with  satisfaction  to  Charles  Wolfe's  ode  called  "  The 
Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore  at  Coruna,"  which  still,  after 
a  hundred  years,  palpitates  with  delicate  life.  First 
printed  in  1817,  this  famous  poem  was  probably  written 
at  least  three  years  earlier.  It  has  been  vulgarised  by 
excess  of  popularity,  but  if  we  endeavour  to  examine 
it  as  though  we  had  never  read  it  before  we  can  but 
be  struck  by  its  freshness,  its  picturesqueness  and  its 
sincerity.  Here,  at  last,  the  Darwin  and  Penrose  style, 
the  decayed  eighteenth-century  verbiage,  has  completely 
disappeared — 

"  We  buried  him  darkly  at  dead  of  night, 
The  sods  with  our  bayonets  turning; 
By  the  struggling  moonbeam's  misty  light, 
And  the  lantern  dimly  burning." 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English  Poetry     121 

How  far  is  this  from  the  hero  of  Minden,  who 

"  Vaults  o'er  the  plain,  and  in  the  tangled  wood 
Lo  !    dead  Eliza  weltering  in  her  blood  !  " 

Wolfe's  simple  and  exquisite  requiem  is  the  one  success- 
ful English  anecdote  poem  of  the  Napoleonic  wars. 

The  hardihood  of  the  English  poets  in  travelling  over 
the  continent  of  Europe  during  the  Great  War  has 
hardly  received  due  acknowledgment  from  their  bio- 
graphers. When  it  was  difficult  and  even  dangerous 
to  stray  outside  the  confines  of  Albion,  almost  every 
British  bard  took  his  life  and  his  luggage  in  his  hand, 
and  essayed  the  adventure.  Byron  was  pre-eminent 
among  these  voluntary  exiles,  and  when,  in  July  1809, 
he  landed  in  Lisbon,  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  who  had  just 
received  the  title  of  Lord  Wellington,  was  holding 
Portugal  against  the  overwhelming  forces  of  France. 
In  "  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage  "  Byron  seems  to  say 
that  he  was  himself  present  at  the  battle  of  Talavera, 
but  his  language  is  ambiguous,  and  the  fact  is  hardly 
credible.  Byron  was,  however,  in  or  near  Seville  at 
the  time.  We  know  that  the  infection  of  fighting 
seized  him,  and  that,  being  so  near  to  the  English  army, 
he  nearly  joined  it,  but  was  persuaded  to  push  on  for 
Greece.  In  these  circumstances,  we  anticipate  from 
Byron's  pictures  of  the  campaign  more  vigour  and  reality 
than  we  find  in  them.  They  are  even  ludicrously  flat — 

"  The  Foe,  the  Victim,  and  the  fond  Ally,  .  .  . 
Are  met — as  if  at  home  they  could  not  die — 
To  feed  the  crow  on  Talavera's  plain, 
And  fertilise  the  field  that  each  pretends  to  gain." 


122  Inter  Arma 


Byron  happened  at  this  time  to  ride  across  what 
became,  two  years  later,  the  battlefield  of  Albuera, 
and  this  scene  came  back  to  him  when  he  wrote  "  The 
Curse  of  Minerva  "  at  Athens  in  March  1811.  That 
poem  contains  a  passage  on  the  capture  of  Barosa  by 
General  Graham,  which  must  have  been  written  im- 
mediately on  the  arrival  of  the  news  in  Greece.  Massena 
had  been  sent  "  to  drive  the  English  leopards  into  the 
sea/'  and  the  smouldering  war  in  the  Peninsula  had 
broken  out  again  with  renewed  ferocity.  The  victory 
of  Wellington  was  still  far  from  decisive,  and  Byron 
in  Athens,  like  many  of  his  countrymen  in  London, 
thought  an  invasion  of  England  imminent.  The  words 
of  Byron,  in  "The  Curse  of  Minerva/'  are  significant — 

"  Say  with  what  eye  along  the  distant  down 
Would  flying  burghers  mark  the  blazing  town  ? 
How  view  the  column  of  ascending  flames 
Shake  his  red  shadow  o'er  the  startled  Thames  ? 
Nay,  frown  not,  Albion  !    for  the  torch  was  thine 
That  lit  such  pyres  from  Tagus  to  the  Rhine  : 
Now  should  they  burst  on  thy  devoted  coast, 
Go,  ask  thy  bosom  who  deserves  them  most  ?  " 

Before  the  manuscript  reached  Murray,  Salamanca  and 
Vittoria  had  put  another  face  on  the  situation ;  "  The 
Curse  of  Minerva,"  a  very  petulant  satire,  was  wisely 
withheld  from  publication.  In  "  Childe  Harold  n,"  we 
may  note  that  the  rule  of  Bonaparte  is  described  as 
"  one  bloated  Chief's  unwholesome  reign."  Byron  was 
not  fitted  by  his  complexity  of  temperament  to  become 
the  simple  Tyrtaeus  of  his  own  or  any  other  race. 

Indeed,  there  was  only  one  British  writer  of  that 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English  Poetry     123 

thrilling  age  who  was  in  any  degree  moved  to  adopt 
the  attitude  of  that  lame  schoolmaster  of  Aphidna  who 
wrote  Doric  war-songs  in  the  dim  dawn  of  Athens.  In 
Campbell  we  have  an  authentic  and  almost  an  official 
battle-minstrel.  He  took  very  seriously  his  mission 
to  awaken  and  extend  patriotic  feeling  in  his  native 
country,  and  when  his  earliest  stanzas,  "  The  Wounded 
Hussar,"  were  hawked  about  the  streets  of  Glasgow, 
they  exacerbated  public  opinion,  roused,  not  by  any 
deeds  on  shore,  but  by  the  sea- victories  off  Cape  St. 
Vincent  and  at  Camperdown.  Of  Campbell's  old  father, 
the  Glasgow  trader,  we  are  told  that  "  he  could  sing  a 
good  naval  song,"  and  the  poet  naturally  became  the 
recognised  laureate  of  the  fleet.  In  1801  he  composed, 
although  he  did  not  immediately  publish,  "  The  Battle 
of  the  Baltic  "  and  "  Ye  Mariners  of  England,"  lyrics 
in  which  a  fastidious  taste  may  detect  many  blemishes, 
but  which  will  never  lose  their  power  to  stir  an  English 
pulse.  Campbell  saw  some  fighting  in  Bavaria  towards 
the  close  of  1800,  but  he  was  not  present  at  Hohenlinden, 
although  he  has  celebrated  it  in  one  of  the  most  spirited 
of  ballads.  His  position  in  Germany  became  very 
disagreeable,  and  when,  in  March  1801,  war  broke  out 
between  England  and  Denmark,  Campbell  made  a  rush 
from  Altona  to  Yarmouth,  hotly  chased  by  a  Danish 
frigate.  A  little  later  he  published  "  The  Soldier's 
Dream,"  beginning — 

"  Our  bugles  sang  truce,  for  the  night-cloud  had  lowered, 

And  the  sentinel  stars  set  their  watch  in  the  sky ; 
And  thousands  had  sunk  on  the  ground  overpower'd, 
The  weary  to  sleep  and  the  wounded  to  die." 


124  Inter  Arma 


The  "  Threatened  Invasion  "  affected  Campbell,  as  it 
did  all  the  other  poets,  but  it  seems  to  be  a  subject 
which  defies  poetical  treatment,  and  his  "  Rise,  fellow 
freemen,  and  stretch  the  right  hand  "  is  but  a  poor 
affair.  Indeed,  in  the  line  "  Let  a  death-bed  repentance 
be  taught  the  proud  foe,"  Campbell's  ardour  approaches 
the  ridiculous.  Far  better  is  the  somewhat  later  song 
beginning  "  Men  of  England  !  "  Less  known  is  "  Hal- 
lowed Ground,"  which  is  still  stirring  in  some  of  its 
stanzas.  A  bald  and  almost  comic  anecdote  is  told  in 
"  Napoleon  and  the  British  Sailor." 

Critical  appreciation  has  steadily  receded  from  Camp- 
bell, and  it  is  not  easy  now  to  do  him  justice.  It  may 
therefore  be  of  interest  to  quote  from  an  unpublished 
letter  written  (Aug.  3,  1875)  by  Swinburne  to  a  friend 
of  his  who  had  praised  the  martial  lyrics — 

"  I  was  very  much  pleased  by  your  article  on  Camp- 
bell, though  not  quite  agreeing  with  your  high  estimate 
of  some  of  his  minor  ballads  and  songs;  but  that  is 
the  right  side  on  which  to  exceed,  and  with  the  tone 
of  the  whole  I  most  heartily  sympathise.  It  did  one 

good  to  read  it,  after 's  and  other  depreciations 

of  our  great  (if  not  only)  national  lyric  poet.  Of  his 
two  masterpieces  I  should  have  spoken  even  more  pas- 
sionately than  yourself;  for  the  simple  fact  is  that  I 
know  nothing  like  them  at  all — simile  aut  secundum — 
in  their  own  line,  which  is  one  of  the  very  highest  in 
the  highest  range  of  poetry.  What  little  of  national 
verse  is  as  good  patriotically  is  far  inferior  poetically — 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English  Poetry     125 

witness  Burns  and  Rouget  de  ITsle;  and  what  little 
in  that  line  might  satisfy  us  better  as  poetry  than  the 
"  Marseillaise  "  or  "  Scots  wha  hae  "  is  pitifully  wanting 
in  the  nerve  which  thrills  by  contact  all  the  blood  of  all 
their  hearers,  boys  and  men,  students  and  soldiers, 
poets  and  dullards,  with  one  common  and  divine  touch 
of  unquenchable  fire.  Next  to  Campbell,  of  course,  is 
Callicles,  but  even  the  old  Attic  song  of  tyrannicide  is 
to  me  not  quite  so  triumphant  a  proof  of  the  worth 
and  weight  of  poetry  in  national  matters.  All  this  and 
many  things  more  I  should  myself  have  liked  to  say 
in  public/' 

"  All  this,"  however,  Swinburne  never  found  an 
opportunity  to  "  say  in  public,"  and  I  therefore  offer 
no  apology  for  here  recording  the  opinion  of  so 
great  an  authority  in  favour  of  the  war-poetry  of 
Campbell. 

The  great  surprise  of  the  investigation  on  which  we 
are  now  engaged  is  the  almost  complete  inefficiency  of 
Walter  Scott.  By  the  gallantry  of  his  character  and 
by  his  fondness  for  every  species  of  high  adventure  he 
might  seem  to  be  pointed  out  as  the  natural  exponent 
in  rapid  and  spirited  verse  of  the  martial  deeds  of  his 
countrymen.  But  he  preserved  an  extraordinary  reserve 
until  the  middle  of  the  Peninsular  War,  and  even  then 
it  cannot  be  said  that  his  exertions  added  much  to  the 
glories  of  the  British  Muse.  The  sorrows  of  the  Portu- 
guese, who  were  treated  by  Massena's  troops  very 
much  as  the  Belgians  have  recently  been  treated  by 


126  Inter  Arma 


the  Germans,  roused  a  lively  indignation  in  England. 
A  committee  was  formed  for  the  relief  of  Portugal,  and 
Walter  Scott,  on  seeing  the  advertisement  and  without 
having  been  applied  to,  generously  offered  to  write  a 
poem  and  contribute  the  profits  of  its  first  edition  to 
the  fund.  He  was  at  the  height  of  his  popularity,  and 
the  proposal  was,  of  course,  accepted  with  enthusiasm. 
In  a  very  brief  time  Scott  had  composed  "  The  Vision 
of  Don  Roderick,"  which  was  published  in  the  summer 
of  1811,  soon  after  the  victories  of  Fuentes  de  Onoro 
and  Albuera.  It  came,  however,  as  a  great  disappoint- 
ment to  Scott's  admirers;  it  had  little  or  nothing  of 
the  buoyancy  of  "  The  Lord  of  the  Isles  "  and  "  The  Lady 
of  the  Lake,"  while  it  was  impossible  not  to  see  that  its 
spirit  and  temper  were  deformed  by  political  prejudice. 
The  omission  of  the  name  of  Sir  John  Moore  was  seized 
upon  as  an  odious  example  of  Whig  bias,  and  is,  indeed, 
unaccountable  on  any  theory  very  creditable  to  Scott. 
"  The  Vision  of  Don  Roderick  "  is  now  little  read,  for 
the  Spenserian  stanza  in  which  it  is  written  is  less 
attractive  in  Scott's  hands  than  his  easy,  accustomed 
octosyllabics,  yet  the  conclusion  of  it,  where  he  lays 
the  medieval  legend  wholly  aside,  and  concentrates  his 
attention  on  the  deeds  of  our  Peninsular  forces,  is  often 
vigorous.  A  single  fragment  will  give  a  just  impression 
of  the  whole — 


"  Four  moons  have  heard  these  thunders  idly  roll'd, 
Have  seen  these  wistful  myriads  eye  their  prey 
As  savage  wolves  survey  a  guarded  fold — 
But  in  the  middle  path  a  Lion  lay  ! 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English  Poetry     127 

At  length  they  move,  but  not  to  battle-fray, 
Nor  blaze  yon  fires  where  meets  the  manly  fight ; 

Beacons  of  infamy,  they  light  the  way 
Where  cowardice  and  cruelty  unite 
To  damn  with  double  shame  their  ignominious  flight." 


The  abdication  of  Napoleon  in  April  1814  produced 
a  great  sensation  in  English  society  and  a  slight  flutter 
in  the  dovecotes  of  the  Muses.  Landor,  who  had  intro- 
duced the  Corsican  mysteriously  into  "Gebir"  as 
"  a  mortal  man  above  all  mortal  praise,"  now  revised 
this  verdict  in  a  Greek  epigram  which  remarks  (as 
translated  by  Swinburne) — 

"  Thy  life-long  works,  Napoleon,  who  shall  write  ? 
Time,  in  his  children's  blood  who  takes  delight." 

Southey,  during  the  negotiations  which  led  to  the 
abdication,  composed  a  great  Pindaric  ode  on  the 
subject  of  Napoleon,  in  which  he  remarked — 

"  For  sooner  shall  the  Ethiop  change  his  skin. 
Or  from  the  Leopard  shall  her  spots  depart, 
Than  this  man  change  his  old  flagitious  heart. 
Have  ye  not  seen  him  in  the  balance  weigh'd, 
And  there  found  wanting  ?     On  the  stage  of  blood 
Foremost  the  resolute  adventurer  stood  "; 

and  again,  addressing  France — 


"  One  man  hath  been  for  ten  long  wretched  years 
The  cause  of  all  this  blood  and  all  these  tears; 
One  man  in  this  most  awful  point  of  time 
Draws  on  thy  danger,  as  he  caused  thy  crime." 


128  Inter  Arma 


Southey's  verse  is  rarely  agreeable;  its  harmonies 
seem  produced  by  a  vigorous  brandishing  of  the  poker 
and  the  tongs;  but  in  the  course  of  this  Ode  of  1814 
he  is  inspired  by  a  sincere  and  righteous  wrath,  and  his 
denunciation  of  the  crimes  of  Bonaparte  can  still  be 
read  with  interest.  So  can,  in  a  different  way,  those 
of  Byron,  written  off  almost  impromptu,  so  soon  as 
the  news  of  the  abdication  reached  him.  He  heard, 
or  probably  saw  in  a  newspaper,  that  his  "  poor  little 
pagod,"  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  was  "  pushed  off  his 
pedestal;"  he  immediately  published  anonymously,  five 
days  after  the  event  in  Paris,  his  "  Ode  to  Napoleon 
Bonaparte."  The  diction  of  this  poem  has  the  looseness, 
the  negligence  of  art,  which  destroys  for  us  the  charm 
of  so  much  of  Byron's  work,  but  the  vehemence  of  its 
rhetoric  cannot  be  denied,  nor  the  ingenuity  of  its 
symbolism — 

"  He  who  of  old  would  rend  the  oak 

Dreamed  not  of  the  rebound; 
Chained  by  the  trunk  he  vainly  broke, — 

Alone — how  looked  he  round  ? 
Thou,  in  the  sternness  of  thy  strength, 
An  equal  deed  hast  done  at  length, 

And  darker  fate  hast  found ; 
He  fell,  the  forest  prowlers'  prey, 
But  thou  must  eat  thy  heart  away." 

In  the  "  Ode  on  Venice,"  not  published  until  1819, 
will  be  found  certain  shadowy  reflections  on  military 
events  in  Europe  between  1812  and  1814,  and  Byron 
surveys  "  the  three  fractions  of  the  groaning  globe  " 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English   Poetry     129 

with  complacency,  finding  that,  in  a  world  subdued 
by  the  Tyrant,  England  alone  "  yet  rears  her  crest, 
unconquered  and  sublime." 

The  victory  of  Waterloo  was  the  first  and  the  only 
incident  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  which  roused  any 
general  expression  of  lyrical  emotion  from  the  British 
Muses.  It  was  copiously  celebrated  in  verse,  but  by 
a  singular  fatality  that  verse  was  almost  without  ex- 
ception inadequate  to  the  occasion.  Indeed,  the  only 
tribute  to  Waterloo  which  can  be  considered  as  having 
risen  to  anything  like  the  height  of  its  great  theme  was 
written  in  prose,  although  in  a  style  so  transcendental 
and  elaborate  as  to  compete  with  verse  in  its  effect.  It 
is  therefore  pardonable  to  record  here  the  extraordinary 
performance  of  De  Quincey  called  "  The  English  Mail- 
Coach,"  the  ingenious  subject  of  which  is  the  ecstasy 
carried  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  England  by 
the  mail-coaches  which  "  distributed  over  the  face  of 
the  land,  like  the  opening  of  apocalyptic  vials,  the 
heart-shaking  news  "  of  Waterloo.  This  was  a  subject 
admirably  adapted  to  the  Corinthian  splendour  of  De 
Quincey 's  ornamented  prose,  and  irr  the  famous  third 
section  of  this  rhapsody,  "  The  Dream-Fugue,"  he 
hovers  over  the  very  limit  of  which  prose  is  capable  in 
almost  insupportable  fulness  of  symbol  and  colour  and 
reverberation.  However  severely  purity  of  taste  may 
cavil  against  the  texture  of  this  redundant  richness, 
no  one  can  deny  that  in  "  The  English  Mail-Coach  " 
Waterloo  has  inspired  De  Quincey  to  the  performance 
of  an  astonishing  feat. 


130  Inter  Arma 


But  of  the  poets  the  record  is  less  exhilarating. 
Southey  was  the  first  to  hasten,  with  characteristic 
conscientiousness,  to  the  scene  of  battle,  picking  up 
notes  and  relics  on  the  spot,  as  a  cockney  collects  shells 
on  the  sea-shore.  Almost  immediately  on  his  return 
to  Kenswick  he  produced  a  volume  of  verse,  entitled 
The  Poet's  Pilgrimage  to  Waterloo.  He  also  kept  a  full 
journal  of  his  adventures  in  the  course  of  this  journey,  but 
this  diary  was  not  published  until  1903.  It  is  a  much 
more  interesting  document  than  the  poem,  Southey 's 
prose  being  always  more  readable  than  his  verse.  It 
contains  a  delightful  paragraph,  exemplifying  the 
seriousness  with  which  Southey  took  his  high  Parnassian 
calling.  He  tells  us  that  he  was  accompanied  by  his 
wife  and  his  eldest  daughter,  and  he  adds — 

"  Being  in  some  degree  bound  to  celebrate  the  greatest 
victory  in  British  history,  I  persuaded  myself  that  if 
any  person  had  a  valid  cause  or  pretext  for  visiting 
the  field  of  Waterloo  it  was  the  Poet  Laureate." 

The  personal  revelations  in  The  Poet's  Pilgrimage  and 
the  descriptions  of  Flemish  scenery  are  interesting,  and 
indeed  give  as  favourable  an  impression  of  Southey's 
poetical  powers  as  any  part  of  his  writings,  but  the 
actual  reconstruction  of  the  battle  itself  is  very  poor, 
and  we  presently  drift  into  an  intolerable  morass  of 
allegory.  Was  it  Mommsen  who  said  that  Tacitus  was 
"  the  most  unmilitary  of  military  writers  "  ?  Southey 
was  at  least  as  fond  of  battles  and  still  less  happy  in 
describing  them. 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English   Poetry     131 

Yet  Southey  at  Waterloo  was  a  genius  in  comparison 
with  Walter  Scott,  who,  though  not  a  Poet  Laureate, 
felt  obliged  to  visit  the  scene  of  the  battle  and  to  publish 
a  poem  on  the  subject.  "  The  Field  of  Waterloo  "  was 
rapidly  written  and  appeared  in  October  1815 ;  it  was 
published  as  an  attractive  volume,  and  its  subject,  no 
less  than  the  name  of  its  illustrious  author,  ensured  it 
a  great  sale.  Lord  Erskine  summed  up  the  general 
criticism  of  it  in  an  epigram  which  enjoyed  a  wide 
circulation — 

"  On  Waterloo's  ensanguined  plain 
Lie  tens  of  thousands  of  the  slain ; 
But  none  by  sabre  or  by  shot 
Fell  half  so  flat  as  Walter  Scott." 

Scott  was  a  little  more  felicitous  in  the  ode  entitled  "  The 
Dance  of  Death,"  also  written  in  1815,  and  beginning — 

"  Night  and  morning  were  at  meeting 

Over  Waterloo ; 

Cocks  had  sung  their  earliest  greeting, 
Faint  and  low  they  crew," 

and  in   the   rather   mysterious   verses   called    "Saint 
Cloud" — 

"  The  drum's  deep  roll  was  heard  afar; 

The  bugle  wildly  blew 
Good  night  to  Uhlan  and  Hussar 
That  garrison  Saint  Cloud." 

Scott  took  a  great  interest  in  the  incidents  of  Napoleon's 
last  campaign,  and  as  late  as  April  1818  we  find  him 
commenting  severely  on  Byron's  abuse  of  language  in 
speaking  of  "  the  carnage  "  of  Mont  St.  Jean. 


132  Inter  Arma 


Two  odes  and  several  sonnets  attest  Wordsworth's 
emotion  at  the  victory,  and  the  earlier  of  the  odes 
contains  one  striking  passage — 

"  We  laud 
And  magnify  Thy  name,  Almighty  God  ! 

But  Man  is  Thy  most  awful  instrument 

In  working  out  a  pure  intent; 
Thou  cloth'st  the  wicked  in  their  dazzling  mail 
And  for  Thy  righteous  purpose  they  prevail ; 

Thine  arm  from  peril  guards  the  coasts 

Of  them  who  in  Thy  laws  delight  : 
Thy  presence  turns  the  scales  of  doubtful  fight, 
Tremendous  God  of  battles,  Lord  of  Hosts  !  " 

Unquestionably,  however,  Byron  had  been  much 
more  successful  than  all  his  brother-bards  in  his  poetical 
treatment  of  Waterloo.  He  also,  like  Scott  and  Southey, 
explored  the  battlefield,  but  he  was  less  precipitate  in 
recording  his  impressions  in  verse.  It  is  not  until  the 
third  canto  of  "  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage  "  that  we 
are  introduced  to  the  "  first  and  last  of  fields  " 

"  And  Harold  stands  upon  this  place  of  skulls* 
The  grave  of  France,  the  deadly  Waterloo." 

The  victory  suggests  to  Byron  a  reflection  which  had 
not  occurred  to  the  other  laureates  of  the  victory  and 
had  not  troubled  the  triumphal  ecstasies  of  De  Quincey. 
He  admits  that  France  is  chained,  but  for  that  reason 
is  Earth  more  free?  Wordsworth  had,  in  a  solemn 
sonnet,  impressed  upon  the  Allies  the  duty  of  gratitude 
and  justice.  Byron  is  not  hopeful  of  their  response, 
and  sees  in  the  fall  of  Napoleon  only  a  lessening  of  the 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English   Poetry     133 

despots  of  the  world  by  one.  He  breaks  off  these  cynical 
suggestions  to  embark  on  one  of  his  finest  passages  of 
description,  that  famous  account  of  how  "  There  was 
a  sound  of  revelry  by  night,"  which  is  pursued  to  the 
field  of  Waterloo  and  is  followed  by  an  address  to  the 
fallen  "  Conqueror  and  Captive  of  the  Earth,"  who,  at 
the  moment  when  it  was  written,  was  being  closely 
guarded  at  St.  Helena.  The  thirty-five  stanzas  in 
which  Byron  deals,  sometimes  rather  remotely,  with 
the  incidents  and  politics  of  1815,  form  the  best  metrical 
record  of  the  feelings  of  Englishmen  at  that  time  which 
have  come  down  to  us.  After  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  but 
before  the  publication  of  "  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage 
in,"  Byron  printed  several  war-poems,  presumed  to 
be  "  from  the  French."  These  need  not  delay  us,  nor 
some  trifles,  not  particularly  neat,  from  the  pen  of  the 
essentially  unmartial  Thomas  Moore. 

After  the  Peace  there  were  some  poetical  retrospects 
which  deserve  to  be  mentioned.  Walter  Scott  prefixed 
to  one  of  the  chapters  of  Old  Mortality  a  quatrain 
which  far  outweighs  in  value  all  his  laborious  celebrations 
of  the  war — 

"  Sound,  sound  the  clarion,  fill  the  fife  ! 

To  all  the  sensual  world  proclaim, 
One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name." 

It  is  probable  that  if  Shelley  had  been  born  a  few 
years  earlier  he  would  have  been  moved  to  celebrate 
contemporary  events  with  the  passionate  intensity 
which  marked  his  genius.  In  the  last  years  of  his  brief 


134  Inter  Anna 


life,  when  his  powers  had  ripened  and  his  views  of 
humanity  had  widened,  he  showed  himself  an  eager 
observer  of  the  great  world  of  European  politics.  But 
he  was  still  a  child  when  Napoleon  was  in  the  full  tide 
of  success,  and  his  attention  was  not  called  to  the 
Continent  until  after  the  Allies  had  signed  the  Peace  of 
Paris.  Some  crude  verses,  entitled  "  Mother  and  Son," 
were  written  in  1812,  and  treat  of  the  familiar  terrors 
of  the  press-gang  and  "  the  woe  which  tyrants  on  their 
victims  love  to  wreak."  But  Shelley  contributed 
no  thing  j  serious  to  the  subject  of  our  inquiry  until  1816, 
when  he  published,  with  "  Alastor,"  his  sonnet  on  the 
Fall  of  Bonaparte.  In  this  he  speaks  of  his  hatred  of 
the  despot,  and  his  joy  that  time  has  swept  Napoleon's 
frail  and  bloody  pomp  in  fragments  towards  oblivion. 
In  the  preface  to  The  Revolt  of  Islam  (1816)  he 
analyses  rather  closely  his  own  attitude  towards  Napo- 
leon and  the  results  of  the  war,  but  we  can  trace  little 
direct  inspiration  from  contemporary  events  in  the  epic 
itself,  after  the  opening  statement — 

"  When  the  last  hope  of  trampled  France  had  failed 
Like  a  brief  dream  of  unremaining  glory, 
From  visions  of  despair  I  rose." 

Shelley  then  yearned  for  "  Victory,  Victory  to  the  pros- 
trate nations,"  but  his  purview  of  their  condition  was  still 
extremely  vague.  Three  years  later,  in  October  1819, 
he  was  writing  the  "  Ode  to  the  Assertors  of  Liberty," 
which  mirrors  the  discontent  and  distress  which  followed 
the  war,  and  in  1820  he  composed  the  great  "  Ode  to 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English   Poetry     135 

Liberty,"  in  which  he  sums  up  the  state  of  Europe  in 
the  preceding  generation — 

"  How  like  Bacchanals  of  blood 

Round  France,  the  ghastly  vintage,  stood 
Destruction's  sceptred  slaves,  and  Folly's  mitred  brood  ! 
When  one,  like  them,  but  mightier  far  than  they, 

The  Anarch  of  thy  own  bewildered  powers 
Rose  :    armies  mingled  in  obscure  array, 

Like  clouds  with  clouds,  darkening  the  sacred  bowers 
Of  serene  Heaven.     He,  by  the  past  pursued, 

Rests  with  those  dead,  but  unforgotten  hours, 
Whose  ghosts  scare  victor  kings  in  their  ancestral  towers." 

This  was  written  about  fifteen  months  before  the  death 
of  Napoleon,  the  news  of  which  roused  Shelley  to  the 
composition  of  the  vigorous  lines  beginning,  "  What  ! 
alive  and  so  bold,  O  Earth?  "  and  may  have  had 
something  to  do  with  the  study  of  contemporary  events 
in  Greece  which  took  the  form  of  "  Hellas/'  Shelley's 
inclination  to  write  at  the  suggestion  of  events  of  the 
moment  now  increased,  but  he  was  approaching  the 
end  of  his  career.  There  is  a  temptation  to  examine 
"  The  Masque  of  Anarchy "  in  the  interests  of  our 
inquiry,  but  its  stanzas  do  not  refer  directly  to  Napoleon, 
of  whom,  however,  we  find  a  portrait  preserved  in  the 
latest  of  all  Shelley's  works,  the  unfinished  "  Triumph 
of  Life  "- 

"  '  Who  is  he  with  chin 

Upon  his  breast,  and  hands  crost  on  his  chain  ?  ' 
The  child  of  a  fierce  hour." 

But  when  this  was  written  Europe  was  already  six 
years  past  Waterloo.     Still  later  came  Byron's  petulant 


136  Inter  Arma 


gibes  at  the  Duke  as  "  the  best  of  cut-throats  "  in  the 
eighth  and  ninth  cantos  of  "  Don  Juan  "  ;  and  the  poetical 
record  of  the  Napoleonic  war  ends  with  Byron's  cynical 
inquiry  to  Wellington — 

"  And  I  shall  be  delighted  to  learn  who, 
Save  you  and  yours,  have  gained  by  Waterloo." 

If  all  the  historical  records  were  to  perish,  it  would 
be  impossible  for  posterity  to  recover  a  coherent  im- 
pression of  the  course  of  the  war  from  the  works  of 
contemporary  British  poets.  The  anger  and  confusion 
caused  by  the  press-gangs,  and  the  occasional  and 
rather  undignified  panic  of  invasion,  greatly  over- 
shadow in  their  effusions  the  heroic  and  strategic  features 
of  the  struggle.  The  English,  who  fought  so  well,  sang 
of  battle  very  languidly,  and  even  when  they  sat  down 
to  celebrate  a  victory  their  attention  was  apt  to  be  called 
away  by  the  curve  of  a  garland  of  hop-vines  or  by  a 
recollection  of  Cumbrian  mountains.  Southey,  on  the 
field  of  Waterloo,  expatiates  on  the  peculiarities  of 
Flemish  tillage.  Nowhere  do  we  find  any  attempt  to 
depict  the  wide  movement  of  troops  over  the  length 
and  breadth  of  Europe,  or  to  define  the  larger  political 
features  of  the  struggle.  For  all  that  the  poets  tell 
us  between  1795  and  1815,  Wordsworth's  "  Happy 
Warrior  "  might  as  well  be  a  mere  aspiration  as  the 
portrait  of  an  actual  leader.  We  hear  of  battles  in 
Portugal  and  Spain,  but  nothing  of  their  cause  or 
character.  Bonaparte  is  revealed  now  as  a  godlike 
hero,  now  as  a  bestial  tyrant,  and  the  same  poets  who 


Napoleonic  Wars  in  English  Poetry     137 

have  lifted  him  to  heaven  to-day  will  complacently 
revile  him  to-morrow.  The  Napoleonic  War,  in  short, 
was  so  imperfectly  recorded  by  the  poets  who  lived 
through  its  tremendous  shock  that  we  may  fairly 
represent  it  as  not  recorded  by  them  at  all.  Nearly 
a  century  was  to  pass  before  there  should  rise  a  poet 
who,  on  the  huge  canvas  of  "  The  Dynasts,"  for  the  first 
time  would  paint  for  us  a  panorama  of  the  struggle  not 
unworthy  of  its  stupendous  issues. 

January  1915. 


WAR   POETRY   IN    FRANCE 


WAR   POETRY    IN    FRANCE 

THERE  is  a  quality  in  war,  as  there  is  in  religion,  which 
does  not  lend  itself  kindly  to  the  art  of  verse.  At 
first  sight  we  might  expect  to  see  these  two  forms 
of  energy  pre-eminent  in  encouraging  lofty  poetical 
expression.  They  are  prodigiously  romantic  in  their 
outline  and  their  detail,  they  occupy  man's  thoughts 
and  passions  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  interests,  for, 
when  either  of  them  takes  hold  of  humanity,  all  lesser 
occupations  have  to  stand  aside  and  wait.  Yet,  as 
a  matter  of  critical  experience,  the  lyrical  triumphs 
of  martial  and  religious  poetry  are  few,  and  they  are 
narrowly  limited  in  scope.  While  he  was  delivering 
one  of  his  famous  Oxford  lectures,  Matthew  Arnold 
held  up  in  one  hand  The  Golden  Treasury  and  in  the 
other  The  Book  of  Praise,  and  said,  "  How  are  we  to 
explain  that  there  is  hardly  anything  that  is  not  poetry 
in  the  one  and  hardly  anything  that  is  poetry  in  the 
other?  "  The  latter  may  be  affirmed,  and  with  still 
more  confidence,  about  any  collection  of  exclusively 
military  verse,  since  war  has  produced  no  Christina 
Rossetti.  But  the  reason  of  it  is  difficult  to  seize,  and 
evaded  the  acuteness  of  Arnold  himself.  Perhaps  the 
very  scope  and  tremendous  importance  of  the  two 

themes,   which  in  their  rigid  outlines   transcend  the 

141 


142  Inter  Arma 


imagination  and  make  its  exercise  unnecessary,  are 
elements  in  the  species  of  paralysis  which  attacks  the 
poet-artist  in  his  attempt.  At  all  events,  it  is  certain 
that  the  poetry  which  has  definitely  succeeded  in  moving 
the  hearts  of  armies  has,  at  least  in  modern  times, 
achieved  that  success  by  a  sacrifice  of  the  highest 
qualities  of  poetry. 

It  needs  not,  therefore,  be  a  matter  of  surprise  to 
discover  that  the  poet  who  has  done  more  than  any 
other  single  man  to  prepare  the  temper  of  Frenchmen 
for  the  present  war  was  not  a  writer  of  high  intrinsic 
merit.  The  sale  of  Chants  du  Soldat  has  been  con- 
tinuous for  more  than  forty  years,  and  the  little  book 
has  run  through  more  than  one  hundred  and  sixty 
large  editions.  It  has  been  more  widely  read  and  more 
durably  popular  than  any  other  book  of  modern  French 
verse.  No  consideration  of  the  temper  of  the  French 
nation  to-day  has  any  completeness  if  we  ignore  it. 
Nor  does  it  contain  a  single  offence  against  good  taste, 
or  any  vulgarity  of  language.  But  although  the  poetry 
of  Paul  Deroulede  has  enjoyed  and  has  deserved  so 
universal  an  appreciation  by  the  public,  and  although 
there  is  not  merely  no  flagging  in  that  interest,  but,  as 
a  consequence  of  current  events,  a  great  recrudescence 
of  it,  yet  it  has  scarcely  received  any  acceptance  from 
the  leaders  of  literary  opinion.  In  France,  where 
criticism  is  so  abundant  and  so  generally  intelligent, 
very  little  notice  has  ever  been  awarded  to  the  poems 
of  Deroulede.  While  he  has  taken  his  civic  place  as 


War  Poetry  in   France  143 

one  of  the  principal  architects  of  the  new  national 
French  spirit,  the  purely  literary  judgment  on  his  work 
has  never  ceased  to  be  what  Leconte  de  Lisle  indicated 
when  some  one  mentioned  the  name  of  Deroulede  in 
his  presence :  "  Ce  n'est  pas  assez  de  ne  parler  de  ce 
jeune  homme;  il  faut  encore  en  mal  parler."  When 
Deroulede  has  been  observed  among  the  poets,  there 
has  usually  been  a  proposal  to  hunt  him  out  of  the 
temple  of  Apollo. 

Let  us  acknowledge  that  his  rhymes  are  poor  and 
often  are  mere  assonance ;  let  it  be  granted  that  his 
hurried  emotional  writing  is  amateurish  at  its  best, 
feeble  and  mediocre  at  its  worst.  Let  us  also  note 
that  we  are  dealing  with  a  French  objective,  and  there- 
fore with  an  audience  naturally  critical.  In  matters 
of  art,  the  large  English  public  has  a  positive  fondness 
for  the  man  who  does  not  know  his  business,  and  who 
triumphs  over  his  want  of  trained  skill.  But  this  is 
not  the  temper  of  France,  where  ignorance  of  the  metier 
is  still  held  to  be  a  disadvantage.  When  refined  Acade- 
micians shuddered  to  hear  the  poems  of  Deroulede 
howled  at  cafe-concerts  by  raucous  women  wrapped  in 
the  tricolour,  their  emotion  was  not  ridiculous.  To  a 
conscientious  artist  these  performances  could  not  but 
be  distressing.  But  what  such  people  as  Leconte  de 
Lisle,  shut  up  in  their  ivory  towers,  did  not  perceive 
was  that  this  painfully  "  inartistic "  verse  was  the 
product  of  a  sincere  and  lofty  inspiration.  It  is  that 
which  makes  Deroulede  so  extremely  interesting  to-day. 


H4  Inter  Arma 


His  sorrowful,  angry  verses,  smelling  of  gunpowder 
and  sounding  of  drum-taps,  are  so  much  a  part  of  the 
temper  of  the  new  France  to-day  that  they  demand 
an  attention  from  serious  criticism  which  has  never 
yet  been  given  them.  In  one  of  the  few  serious  analyses 
of  his  work  which  French  criticism  has  contributed, 
Pontmartin  called  him  "  1'intrepide  sentinelle  des 
lendemains  de  la  defaite."  For  more  than  forty  years 
France  has  waited  for  that  to-morrow  to  dawn;  it  has 
come  at  last,  but  Deroulede,  who  gazed  all  night  into 
the  eastern  darkness  with  a  great  desire,  died  just  too 
soon  to  enter  into  its  radiance. 

The  peculiarity  of  Deroulede's  attitude  was  that  he 
continued  strenuously  militant  when  the  rest  of  the 
French  nation  was  tired  of  war.  One  of  his  biographers 
has  said  of  him  that  "  he  not  merely  preaches  revenge, 
he  is  the  Revenge."  His  life  was  enclosed,  in  a  very 
remarkable  way,  by  the  frontiers  of  war.  He  appeared 
first  as  a  public  character  at  the  very  darkest  hour  of 
despair  after  the  defeat  He  noted  the  exact  date  of 
his  resolution;  on  February  8,  1871,  he  wrote:  "A 
partir  d'aujourd'hui,  je  me  voue  a  la  Revanche."  He 
began  immediately  to  send  forth  his  little  poems,  which 
were  like  so  many  arrows  at  the  heart  of  despair.  He 
was  always  denouncing  weakness  and  fear,  and  his 
verses  had  the  awakening  sound  of  the  tramp  of  armed 
men.  He  persisted,  in  spite  of  constant  political  mis- 
takes, with  exasperating  failures  of  tact,  through  long 
periods  during  which  nobody  listened  to  his  voice,  in 


War   Poetry  in   France  145 

calling  upon  France  not  to  rest  under  her  humiliation, 
but  to  face  the  inevitable  struggle  with  a  fiery  optimism. 
When,  late  in  his  life,  admirers  proposed  to  Deroulede 
a  literary  honour  of  some  kind,  he  waved  it  aside  : 
"  Je  ne  suis  rien  qu'un  sonneur  de  clairon,"  he  replied, 
and  he  continued  to  blow  his  lonely  horn,  like  Roland 
in  the  valley  of  Roncesvalles.  What  seems  almost  a 
miracle  is  that  he  lived  on  until  just  before  the  new 
war  of  Revenge  broke  out,  dying  on  January  30,  1914, 
worn  out  by  long  disease,  but  heroic  to  the  last.  It 
was  said  of  him  that  if  he  could  only  have  lived  six 
months  longer  he  would  have  been  able  to  die  of 

joy- 

Paul  Deroulede  was  born  in  1846,  the  son  of  a  lawyer, 
who  died  early  and  left  him  and  his  brother  Andre  to 
the  care  of  an  admirable  mother.  They  were  brought 
up  in  an  atmosphere  of  literature,  for  6mile  Augier 
was  their  mother's  brother  and  Pigault-Lebrun  their 
grandfather.  Paul  showed  the  more  definite  talent, 
and  early  began  to  write  verses,  to  which  the  death  of 
his  uncle  Colonel  Deroulede,  who  was  killed  fighting  in 
Cochin-China,  gave  a  certain  martial  colour.  This  was 
superficial,  however,  and  oddly  enough,  when  the  war 
of  1870  broke  out,  the  future  author  of  Chants  du  Soldat 
was  very  hostile  to  it.  He  nourished  pacific  dreams  of 
a  universal  fraternity,  and  he  hated  Napoleon  III  much 
more  than  he  feared  Wilhelm  of  Prussia.  In  the  very 
pleasing  record  of  his  life  which  MM.  Tharaud  have 
presented  to  us,  the  story  of  his  conversion  is  told,  and 

L 


146  Inter  Arma 


it  is  as  striking  as  any  crisis  in  a  religious  experience. 
Full  of  his  anti-military  dreams,  he  retired  to  his  mother's 
country-place,  and  was  walking  out,  when  an  old 
peasant  met  him  and  spoke  to  him.  "  Can  you  tell 
me/'  said  the  man,  with  an  obvious  anxiety,  "  on  what 
day  the  troops  are  to  start  ?  "  Deroulede  scornfully 
answered,  "How  should  I  know?"  and  the  peasant 
fixed  on  him  a  look  of  reproach  which  he  never  forgot. 
It  brought  about  what  the  Evangelicals  call  an  instant 
conviction  of  sin,  and  in  that  moment  the  divine  grace 
of  patriotism  was  revealed  to  him.  His  pacifist  in- 
difference died  within  him,  and  the  heart  of  a  soldier 
took  its  place.  He  joined  the  army  as  a  sub-lieutenant, 
and  it  was  on  the  yth  of  August,  the  date  of  the  battle 
of  Weissenbourg,  that  his  conversion  was  complete. 
From  that  day  on,  until  his  death  more  than  forty 
years  later,  he  lived  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  pursue 
the  apostolate  of  revenge. 

He  had  his  full  experience  of  the  distresses  of  war. 
He  led  his  troops  to  the  recapture  of  Montbeliard,  and 
his  heroic  mother,  one  day  in  August  when  the  regiment 
was  at  Neuville-en-Tournefuy,  drove  up  to  the  com- 
mander and  presented  to  him  a  tall  lad  of  seventeen, 
saying,  "  You  have  my  elder  son  already;  I  bring  you 
my  younger  one.  If  I  had  a  third,  I  would  bring  him 
also  to  defend  our  country."  The  splendid  courage  of 
the  old  lady  gave  the  brothers  a  certain  prestige  in  the 
regiment,  where  they  were  known  as  "  les  fils  a  la 
mere  " ;  they  fought  in  successive  disastrous  battles, 


War  Poetry  in  France  147 

and  finally  at  Sedan,  where  in  the  gigantic  chaos  they 
were  believed  to  have  both  been  killed.  So  it  was 
reported  crudely  to  their  wonderful  mother,  who,  not- 
withstanding her  Spartan  courage,  was  stricken  on  the 
spot  with  a  paralysis  from  which  she  never  completely 
recovered.  But  Andre,  though  seriously  wounded,  was 
not  killed,  while  Paul  was  carried  safe  and  sound  into 
Germany  as  a  prisoner,  and  was  interned  at  Breslau. 
Of  his  romantic  escape  and  of  his  adventures  during 
the  Commune  we  can  say  nothing  here,  although  they 
have  a  direct  bearing  upon  his  poems.  But  one  phrase 
which  MM.  Tharaud  quote  is  too  characteristic  to  be 
omitted.  On  his  return  to  his  own  country,  Deroulede 
solemnly  wrote  down,  for  his  own  behoof,  these  words 
of  prophecy  and  faith :  "  Je  ne  dois  seulement  etre 
pret  a  me  faire  tuer  pour  la  France.  Je  dois  ne  plus 
vivre  que  pour  elle.  Mon  but  est  de  lui  preparer  des 
liberateurs  et  des  soldats."  And  that  is  what  he  never 
ceased  to  do  until  he  died. 

Two  months  after  his  return  from  his  German  prison, 
the  Commune  broke  out  in  Paris.  This  was  one  of 
many  occasions  in  the  life  of  Deroulede  when  he  was 
mixed  up  in  matters  which  seemed  to  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  central  thread  of  his  inspiration.  His 
successive  dealings  with  Ferry,  Gambetta,  Boulanger 
and  Clemenceau  gave  a  wild  appearance  of  incoherence 
to  his  strange  and  violent  career.  Curiously  enough, 
now  that  he  is  dead,  the  glaring  pieces  of  glass  seem  to 
have  taken  shape  in  the  turn  of  the  kaleidoscope,  and 


148  Inter  Arma 


we  see  what  they  all  meant  and  why  they  were  inevitable. 
Looking  back  over  the  forty  years,  the  life  of  Paul 
Deroulede  becomes,  not  very  intelligible  perhaps,  but 
yet  beautiful  and  decorous  in  its  penetrating  view  of 
the  future,  in  the  unity  of  its  proud  and  fiery  aspirations. 
On  July  6,  1872,  on  occasion  of  the  anniversary  of 
Corneille,  Coquelin  recited  verses  by  Deroulede — 

"  Et  toi,  Corneille,  toi,  pere  du  grand  courage, 
Redis-nous  ces  Ie9ons  dont  tu  formais  les  coeurs, 
Le  calme  dans  1'effort,  la  haine  apres  1'outrage, 
Redis-nous  la  patrie  et  refais-nous  vainqueurs." 

The  poet  was  charged  with  inconsistency  because  he 
had  entered  Paris  with  the  army  of  Versailles,  and  had 
led  an  assault  upon  the  barricades.  Some  years  later, 
in  a  violent  article  in  L'Intransigeant,  Rochefort  re- 
proached Paul  Deroulede  with  having  picked  up  his 
cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  out  of  a  pool  of  the 
blood  of  Parisians.  The  answer  was  direct :  "  I  received 
my  cross  two  months  before  the  Commune,  for  service 
on  the  battlefield.  I  never  have  shot  a  Parisian;  and 
I  found  behind  the  barricades  only  the  wretches  whom 
you  had  sent  there  without  accompanying  them."  He 
explains,  in  another  place,  that  he  considered  that 
Frenchmen  should  restore  order  in  their  own  house, 
and  not  let  the  Germans  be  their  policemen. 

His  arm  was  broken  on  the  barricades,  and  he  with- 
drew from  the  violence  of  strife  to  the  melancholy 
woodlands  of  his  ancestral  home,  a  little  chateau  at 


War  Poetry  in  France  149 

Langely  in  the  Perigord.  There  the  Derouledes  had 
worked  out  their  destiny  since  the  sixteenth  century, 
neighbours  of  Montaigne.  There,  during  his  slow  con- 
valescence, the  latest  of  their  sons,  meditating  on  the 
fortunes  of  France,  wrote  his  first  little  volume  of 
verses,  Chants  du  Soldat.  It  came  quietly  into  exist- 
ence in  1872,  and,  as  MM.  Tharaud  excellently  point  out, 
it  was  the  first  voice  that  France  raised  after  the  war. 
The  temper  of  it  exactly  suited  the  grave  and  poignant 
situation;  "nous  savions  mourir,  sinon  combattre; 
nous  avons  ete  braves,  mais  la  fortune  nous  a  tram's." 
The  critics  hardly  observed  the  appearance  of  the  book, 
but  it  presently  ran  like  wildfire  through  the  country. 
It  re-lighted  the  extinguished  torch  of  hope  in  tens  of 
thousands  of  hearts,  and  it  unites  1872  and  1914  with 
an  unbroken  thread  of  blood-red  colour.  When  we 
speak  of  the  war  poetry  of  the  present  war,  we  are 
bound  to  consider  the  verses  with  which  Deroulede, 
practically  alone,  and  with  an  astounding  persistency, 
kept  alive  certain  definite  sentiments  in  the  fluctuating 
and  shifting  conscience  of  France. 

German  diplomacy  rarely  fails  to  play  into  the  hands 
of  its  enemies.  A  remarkable  stimulus  was  given  to 
the  sale  of  Chants  du  Soldat,  which  thereupon  became 
the  vade-mecum  of  every  intelligent  French  fighting  man, 
by  the  action  of  Count  Arnim  in  Paris.  He  protested 
to  General  de  Cissey,  then  Minister  of  War,  against  the 
publication  by  a  French  officer  of  "  insolent  verses 
directed  against  Prussia  and  the  Prussians/'  The 


15°  Inter  Arma 


direct  answer  came  from  the  French  Academy,  which 
had  not  hitherto  observed  the  Chants  du  Soldat,  but 
now  "  crowned  "  the  volume  with  every  circumstance 
of  distinction.  Deroulede,  having  become  a  national 
hero,  was  drawn  back  into  the  army,  and  was  pro- 
moted in  a  battalion  of  Chasseurs.  But  the  fate  which 
always  dogged  him  lay  in  wait  for  him  now.  Scarcely 
had  he  begun  his  new  military  duties  than  his  horse 
threw  him,  and  he  smashed  his  foot  so  seriously  that 
he  was  obliged  to  resign.  So  it  happened  throughout 
the  caregr  of  this  extraordinary  man.  Thirsting  to 
distinguish  himself  in  action,  his  efforts  in  public  life 
invariably  failed,  while  the  one  frail  gift  of  his  lyrical 
inspiration  continued  to  perfume  French  sentiment  like 
an  inexhaustible  grain  of  musk. 

His  poems  were  published  in  three  slender  instal- 
ments, Chants  du  Soldat  in  1872,  Nouveaux  Chants  du 
Soldat  in  1875,  Marches  et  Sonneries  in  1881.  Although 
these  little  verses  have  been  before  the  world  so  long, 
it  is  well  that  we  should  examine  them  from  a  new 
point  of  view,  for  it  almost  seems  as  though  they  spoke 
to  us  now  for  the  first  time,  or  at  least-  with  a  new 
clear  note.  It  is  interesting  to  analyse  their  character, 
and  to  compare  their  attitude  with  the  present  condition 

of  France. 

"  Us  ont  cette  esperance, — 
La  France  n'est  pas  morte  encor — Vive  la  France  I  " 

This  was  the  spirit  which  it  was  given  to  Deroulede, 
above  all  other  men,  to  awaken  and  to  sustain  till  the 


War  Poetry  in  France  151 

hour  of  new  experience  should  strike.  His  poems  do 
not  deal  directly  with  battle;  they  are  not  painted  in 
the  Maclise  or  even  in  the  De  Neuville  and  Detaille 
manner.  They  are  anecdotes,  chosen  because  they 
illustrate  the  temper  of  the  French  soldier,  or  bring 
home  to  him  the  necessities  of  France.  With  an  un- 
conscious felicity  which  has  all  the  effect  of  subtilty, 
the  poet,  in  lines  of  brief  and  sometimes  even  halting 
inspiration,  insists  on  giving  blunt,  plain  statements  of 
incidents  that  awaken  the  sensation  of  patriotism.  In 
"  Le  Turco,"  a  boy  scarcely  seventeen  is  brought  by 
his  mother  to  the  regiment — "  Courage,  mon  fils  !  " 
"  Courage,  maman  !  " — and  marches  to  the  war;  when 
the  winter  comes,  he  coughs  and  the  doctor  orders 
him  to  go  home,  but  he  will  not  go  "  while  there  are 
Prussians  in  France."  He  is  shot  in  battle,  and  an 
old  Turco  carries  him  on  his  back  out  of  the  line  of 
fire.  The  French  are  forced  to  retreat,  but  the  Turco 
will  not  confess  it  to  the  dying  boy,  but  says  over  and 
over  again,  "  Oui,  petit  Fran$ais,  tu  les  as  vaincus." 
This  is  directly  sentimental ;  more  penetrating  is  "  La 
Belle  Fille,"  where,  while  the  French  are  marching 
through  the  village  of  Raucourt  to  battle,  a  girl  rushes 
up  and  kisses  a  soldier;  later,  after  the  defeat,  as  they 
march  back  in  disorder,  the  girl  stops  the  same  soldier, 
and  bites  his  cheek.  Deroulede  is  rarely  so  savage  as 
this.  He  prefers  such  a  theme  as  he  illustrates  in  the 
extremely  gay,  delicate  and  affecting  little  piece,  "  Le 
Bon  Gite."  His  longest  effort  in  verse,  "  Le  Sergent," 


152  Inter  Arma 


which  appeared  in  the  volume  of  1875,  is  sentimental 
to  excess,  and  perhaps  the  point  at  which  his  remark- 
able talent  has  suffered  most  from  the  passage  of  time 
is  precisely  this  "  Middle  Victorian  " — as  we  might 
venture  to  call  it — tendency  to  wallow  in  the  primitive 
emotions. 

Deroulede  broke  out  in  a  spasm  of  angry  lyricism  in 
1882,  and  the  cause  of  this  may  safely  be  conjectured. 
He  found  that  France  was  sinking  into  a  tame  oblivion 
of  her  losses  and  her  hatreds.  The  spirit  of  Jules  Ferry, 
of  whom  Deroulede  frankly  said  "  Ce  Ferry  a  Tatheisme 
de  la  patrie,"  was  gaining  ground.  To  the  poet  of 
Chants  du  Soldat  nothing  mattered  except  love  for  the 
fatherland,  determination  to  endure  sacrifice,  a  steadfast 
eye  fixed  on  the  captive  territories.  He  dreaded  the 
opiate  of  peace,  the  distraction  of  material  advantages, 
and  it  is  characteristic  of  him  that  he  steadily  opposed 
the  scheme  for  colonial  expansion,  insisting  that  all 
that  energy  should  be  concentrated  on  rifle  practice 
and  military  gymnastics.  He  saw  the  nation  slipping 
away  from  the  central  idea  of  revenge.  As  a  poet  he 
is  not  dejected,  he  is  not  timorous,  but  above  all  he 
does  not  brag;  he  admits  crushing  defeat.  Yet  all 
these  things  are  nothing  to  him,  and  all  commercial 
and  political  happiness  but  dross,  so  long  as  the  ancient 
injury  is  not  wiped  out — 

"  France,  veux-tu  mon  sang?     II  est  a  toi,  ma  France  ! 
S'il  te  faut  ma  souff ranee, 
Souffrir  sera  ma  loi ; 


War  Poetry  in  France  153 

S'il  te  faut  ma  mort,  mort  a  moi, 
Et  vive  toi, 
Ma  France  !  " 

During  his  lifetime  Deroulede  did  great  injustice  to 
himself,  and  gave  the  Philistines  frequent  cause  to 
blaspheme,  by  the  violence  of  his  language  in  the 
tribune  and  by  his  quarrels  with  successive  governments. 
As  early  as  1878,  when  Madame  de  MacMahon  asked 
him  to  write  a  cantata  entitled  Vive  la  France, 
which  Gounod  set  to  music,  the  poet  could  not  help 
introducing  a  reference  to  the  white  flag  which  set  all 
the  world  by  the  ears.  In  March  1888,  during  the 
inauguration  of  a  monument  to  the  soldiers  killed  in 
Tonkin,  Deroulede  must  needs  protest,  and  there 
followed  a  riot.  After  the  fall  of  the  Goblet  Ministry, 
indeed,  he  was  like  a  dog  with  a  tin  kettle  tied  to  his 
tail,  rushing  hither  and  thither,  till  he  was  patted  by 
the  deceptive  hand  of  General  Boulanger.  All  this  must 
now  be  forgotten,  and  what  must  be  remembered  is 
that  at  a  time  when  half  the  world  despaired  of  the 
future  of  France,  when  Renan  could  tremulously  murmur 
"  France  is  dying,"  and  could  recommend  a  craven 
policy  of  pacifism,  the  poet  of  Chants  du  Soldat  never 
swerved  from  his  position  for  an  hour.  He  wrote  in 
"  A  Mes  Amis" — and  the  noble  words  might  be  graven 
on  his  monument — 

"  J'en  sais  qui  croient  que  la  haine  s'apaise  : 
Mais  non  !   1'oubli  n'entre  pas  dans  nos  coeurs  ! 
Trop  de  sol  manque  a  la  terre  fran9aise, 
Les  conquerants  ont  ete  trop  vainqueurs  ! 


154  Inter  Arma 


L'honneur,  le  rang,  on  a  tout  a  reprendre  .  .  . 
Par  quels  moyens  ?     D'autres  vous  le  diront. 
Moi,  c'est  1'ardeur  que  je  voudrais  nous  rendre, 
Je  ne  suis,  moi,  qu'un  sonneur  de  clairon. 

Je  vis  les  yeux  fixes  sur  la  frontiere 

Et  front  baisse,  comme  un  boeuf  au  labour; 

Je  vais,  revant  a  notre  France  entiere, 

Des  murs  de  Metz  au  clocher  de  Strasbourg. 

Depuis  dix  ans  j'ai  commence  ce  reve, 

Tout  le  traverse  et  rien  ne  l'interrompt. 

Dieu  veuille  un  jour  qu'un  grand  Fran9ais  1'acheve  ! 

Je  ne  suis,  moi,  qu'un  sonneur  de  clairon." 


Deroulede  was  supported  in  his  enthusiasm  by  his 
old  friend  Madame  Henri  Thenard,  in  whose  salon  in 
the  Rue  de  Sevres  he  was  accustomed  to  recite  his 
Chants  du  Soldat  directly  he  had  composed  them.  The 
death  (June  1915)  of  this  noble  and  venerable  lady, 
who  was  a  prime  mover  in  the  foundation  of  the  Ligue 
des  Patriotes  in  1882,  breaks  another  interesting  link 
with  the  Empire. 

There  is  something  very  singular  in  the  coincidence 
that  Deroulede,  like  Moses,  wandered  about  in  the 
wilderness  for  forty  years,  and  died  at  length  almost 
in  sight  of  the  Promised  Land  of  La  Revanche.  The 
volume  in  which  Jer6me  and  Jean  Tharaud  recount 
his  adventures  has  been  published  since  his  death,  but 
was  completed  just  before  it.  Those  who  have  read 
"  La  Tragedie  de  Ravaillac,"  which  is  in  its  own  way  a 
masterpiece,  are  aware  how  remarkable  is  the  aptitude 
shown  by  MM.  Tharaud  in  reducing  a  mass  of  biographi- 


War  Poetry  in  France  155 

cal  material  to  its  entirely  salient  and  vital  proportions. 
This  gift  is  displayed  in  their  latest  work,  but  not  so 
adequately  as  to  forbid  our  regret  that  they  did  not 
delay  the  completion  of  their  monograph  a  little  longer. 
When  once  Deroulede  was  dead,  his  immortality  began, 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  biographers  would 
have  been  able  to  produce  a  more  rounded  portrait  of 
him  if  they  had  not  been  hampered  by  the  respect  due, 
during  his  lifetime,  to  an  elderly  man  in  failing  health. 
In  particular,  they  would  have  dwelt  on  the  significance 
of  the  very  curious  scene  which  took  place  in  the  winter 
of  1913,  when  Deroulede,  warned  by  his  doctor  that 
the  exertion  of  addressing  a  large  company  would 
almost  certainly  be  fatal  to  him,  insisted  on  dying  in 
this  way.  He  summoned  the  Ligue  des  Patriotes  to 
meet  him  at  Champigny-la-Bataille  to  commemorate  the 
soldiers  fallen  in  the  war  of  1870,  and  determined  to  be 
addressing  them  when  the  cardiac  seizure  should  destroy 
him.  He  duly  addressed  his  leaguers  in  an  impassioned 
oration,  closing  his  speech  with  the  words,  "  Vive,  vive 
a  jamais  notre  bien-aimee  patrie,  le  France  !  "  prepared 
to  die  cor  am  populo  and  amid  the  thunders  of  applause. 
But  nothing  Deroulede  planned  ever  succeeded,  and  the 
motor-car  had  to  carry  him  home  again,  to  live  for 
several  weeks  longer. 

But  the  Moses  of  French  battle-poetry  had  scarcely 
passed  away  before  its  Joshua  made  his  appearance. 
The  name  of  Theodore  Botrel  was  entirely  unknown 
in  England,  and  it  was  not  until  the  first  weeks  of  the 


156  Inter  Arma 


war  that  the  improvisatore  of  Breton  airs  became  famous 
throughout  the  world.  It  was  signed  below  a  copy  of 
verses,  distributed  on  August  I,  1914,  beginning— 

"  Quoi  ?     Le  tocsin  tonne  a  1'eglise  ? 
C'est  done  vraiment  le  branle-bas  ? 
Eh  bien  !    puisque  Ton  mobilise, 
Hardi,  les  gas  ! 

Le  Kaiser,  d'un  ton  de  rogomme, 
Vient  nous  provoquer  aux  combats  ? 
Raillons  tous  comme  un  seul  homme : 
Hardi,  les  gas  !  " 

Here,  it  was  plain,  was  a  disciple  or  spiritual  son  of 
the  author  of  Chants  du  Soldat,  and  indeed  Botrel  pre- 
sently confessed  himself  "  petit  sergent  de  Deroulede." 
In  a  poem,  "  Mes  Clarionnees,"  which  he  wrote  on  the 
4th  of  August,  he  defined  his  own  position — 

"  — jusqu'a  ce  que  Ton  m'egorge, 
Tant  bien  que  mal — meme  ralant, — 
Je  veux  sonner  a  pleine  gorge 
Comme  Deroulede  et  Roland; 

Et  ma  chanson,  alerte  et  pure, 

Rythmant  votre  sublime  essor, 

Ne  s'arrStera — je  le  jure — 

Que  vous  triomphants  .  .  .  ou  moi  mort !  " 

Sergeant  Botrel,  however,  is  very  far  indeed  from 
being  a  slavish  copy  of  his  predecessor,  and  the  inspira- 
tion of  his  verse  is  anything  but  identical.  Deroulede 
did  not  begin  to  write  verses  until  France  had  entered 


War  Poetry  in  France  157 

her  darkest  hour  of  discouragement  and  defeat.  It  is 
particularly  noticeable  in  his  poems  that  he  invariably 
acknowledges  present  failure,  although  he  looks  beyond 
it  to  a  coming  triumph,  of  which,  moreover,  it  is  im- 
possible for  him — in  his  great  sincerity — to  pretend  to 
be  perfectly  certain.  Such  poetry  as  is  contained  in 
Chants  du  Soldat  was  appropriate  and  salutary  up  to 
the  moment  of  renewed  hostilities,  but  then  must  lose 
its  significance.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Paul 
Deroulede,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  having  long  abandoned 
the  practice  of  verse  (since  1882  he  had  done  little  more 
than  re-issue  his  poems),  would  have  been  able  ade- 
quately to  come  forward  as  the  Tyrtaeus  of  a  new  world 
at  war.  For  this  kind  of  work  the  freshness  of  youth 
is  imperatively  needed,  and  that  freshness  is  the  char- 
acteristic of  Botrel.  In  him  something  of  the  jauntiness 
of  Aristide  Bruant  and  still  more  a  certain  childish, 
almost  innocent,  bravura  seems  to  have  taken  the  place 
of  Deroulede's  academic  gravity.  If  we  did  not  fear 
to  seem  dazzled  by  the  appearance  at  the  proper  moment 
of  so  sparkling  a  talent,  we  should  claim  the  praise  of 
being  the  most  spirited  war-poet  of  the  world,  not  for 
Korner  or  Beranger  or  even  Deroulede,  but  for  the 
wandering  Breton  minstrel  from  Malines  who  is  now 
officially  gazetted  Poet  to  the  Armies  of  France. 

The  romance  of  Botrel's  brief  career  is  remarkable. 
He  shot  up  into  fame,  as  we  have  said,  at  the  moment 
of  mobilisation.  Within  a  few  days,  as  by  a  kind  of 
magic,  all  the  roads  and  railways  of  France  were  ringing 


158  Inter  Arma 


with  a  new  song,  "  C'est  ta  Gloire,"  which  Botrel  had 
composed  to  a  tune  of  his  own.  Never  were  the  tap  of 
the  drum  and  the  trampling  of  feet  so  vividly  put  into 
metre — 

"  Quand,  par  dela  la  frontiere, 

On  insulta  le  drapeau, 
Dans  un  elan  du  colere 

Nous  chantames  aussitot : — 

'  C'est  la  guerr',  la  guerr',  la  guerre, 

C'est  la  guerre  qu'il  nous  faut !  '  " 

The  poet,  who  is  Belgian  by  birth,  found  himself  by 
the  middle  of  the  month  of  August  in  his  native  country, 
where  he  was  nearly  lost  to  French  enthusiasm  by  his 
determination  to  serve  in  the  Belgian  army.  He  made 
a  proposal  to  this  effect  to  the  Belgian  Minister  of  War, 
General  de  Broqueville,  who  declined  it  in  terms  of 
the  highest  generosity,  urging  Botrel  to  devote  him- 
self to  the  interests  of  France.  Events  now  moved 
with  extraordinary  rapidity,  for  only  eight  days  later 
(August  30,  1914)  the  French  Government,  by  a  decree 
of  M.  Millerand,  appointed  Theodore  Botrel  poet- 
laureate  to  the  armies  of  France.  An  official  notice  of 
that  date  authorised  him  to  "  se  rendre  dans  tous  les 
dep6ts,  camps  et  hopitaux  pour  y  dire  et  chanter  ses 
poemes  patriotiques."  This  is  an  appointment  probably 
unprecedented  in  the  history  of  politics. 

Since  that  date,  no  one  has  worked  with  a  more  fiery 
assiduity  than  the  accredited  "  chansonnier  des  Armees." 
M.  Maurice  Barres  is  an  eloquent  witness  to  Botrel's 


War  Poetry  in   France  159 

zeal,  his  activity,  his  resource  and  his  charm.  He 
circulates  among  the  French  troops,  from  army  to  army, 
from  troop  to  troop,  reciting  and  singing  to  music  of 
his  own  composition  the  magical  repertory  of  his  con- 
stantly increasing  store  of  Chants  du  Bivouac.  Every- 
where he  is  welcomed  by  enthusiastic  soldiers,  in  crowds 
often  so  large  that  Botrel's  rich  voice  cannot  reach  the 
outermost  circle,  crowds  that  wait  for  his  refrain,  take 
it  up,  and  disperse  it  round  the  whole  eastern  edge  of 
France.  The  actual  medical  effect  of  Botrel's  singing 
in  the  hospitals  is  declared  to  be  miraculous.  Mechani- 
cally, he  introduces  to  the  pain-stricken  and  the  de- 
pressed brighter  spirits,  a  quicker  pulse,  a  more  immediate 
hope.  When  he  has  been  singing  to  the  wounded,  they 
develop  a  new  determination  to  get  well  swiftly  and 
to  hasten  back  to  fight.  Some  of  his  later  songs, 
born  of  his  perfect  confidence,  which  is  now  almost  a 
religion,  are  of  a  resonant  quality.  The  poem  called 
"  Rosalie "  has  excited  the  coldest  critics  of  Paris, 
and  has  been  accepted  by  the  Army  with  a  sort  of 
half-idolatrous  exultation.  It  is  a  song  to  the  glory 
of  the  terrible  little  French  bayonet,  a  weapon  which 
is  popularly  called,  nobody  seems  to  know  why, 
"  Rosalie  "— 


"  Nous  avons  soif  de  vengeance : 
Rosalie,  verse  a  la  France, 

Verse  a  boire  ! 
De  la  Gloire  a  pleins  bidons 

Buvons  done  !  " 


160  Inter  Arma 


"  Rosalie  "  promises  to  take  rank  immediately  by  the 
side  of  the  "  Marseillaise,"  as  a  second  immortal  war- 
song  of  the  French. 

A  name  which  was,  we  believe,  almost  unknown 
before  the  declaration  of  war  is  that  of  M.  Miguel 
Zamacois,  whose  poems,  published  in  various  periodicals, 
have  not  yet  been  collected  in  a  volume.  His  influence 
is  not  to  be  compared  with  that  of  M.  Botrel,  for  his 
appeal  is  narrowly  intellectual,  not  broadly  instinctive. 
The  Chants  du  Bivouac  are  redolent  of  good-nature, 
courage,  humour  and  high  spirits;  they  are  borne  up 
by  a  kind  of  divine  puerility.  Botrel  is  much  more 
occupied  with  the  bright  side  of  fighting  than  with  its 
shadows.  When  the  English  troops  mustered  at  La 
Ferte-Milon,  he  greeted  them  with  the  lark-song, 
beginning — 

"  Des  1'premier  jour  de  guerre 

La  loyale  Angleterre 

Envoyait  aux  combats 

Ses  plus  vaillants  soldats, 

Conduits  par  French-le-brave, 

Tou jours  correct  et  grave. 

Ah  !    qu'ils  ont  done  bon  air, 

Les  guerriers  d' Kitchener  ! 

Voila  les  '  Kakis/ 

Qui  nous  ont  conquis, 

Tant  ils  sont  exquis 

(Aoh  !     Yes  !     Very  well  /) 

Lorsque,  bravement, 

Flegmatiquement, 

Ils  cogn'nt  sur  1'All'mand  : 

Aoh  !     Yes  !     Very  well !  " 

This  is  not  the  manner  of  M.  Zamacois,  who  is  in- 
capable of  these  Skeltonian  or  Scarronesque  numbers, 


War  Poetry  in   France  161 

but  who  dedicates  a  muse  of  rhetorical  severity  to  a 
study  of  German  character.  His  addresses  to  the  Kaiser, 
to  the  generals,  to  the  enslaved  professors  of  the  Vater- 
land,  have  a  concentration  of  scorn  and  a  dignity  of 
reproof  which  remind  the  English  reader  of  the  invec- 
tives of  Sir  Owen  Seaman.  He  sees  the  brilliant  Prussian 
officer,  peacocking  it  in  the  salons  of  Berlin,  and  like  an 
avenging  conscience  he  reminds  him  of  what  a  brute 
he  really  is  at  heart — 

"  Car  c'est  toi,  survenant  dans  la  petite  ville 
Que  rien  ne  pouvait  plus  a  present  proteger, 
Qui  t'offrais  chaque  fois  le  plaisir  bien  facile 
De  1'epouvanter  sans  danger  ! 

C'est  toi  qui  maltraitais  le  pretre  et  le  notable 
Et  faisais  devant  eux  le  malin  et  le  fier, 
Parce  que  tu  sentais  pres  de  toi,  sur  la  table, 
Ton  grand  sabre  et  ton  revolver. 

C'est  toi  qui  mena9ais  les  villageois  sans  armes, 
Guettes  par  1'oeil  mauvais  des  petroleurs  casques; 
C'est  toi  qui  faisais  peur  a  des  femmes  en  larmes, 
Entoure  de  canons  braques  ! 

Toi  qui  terrorisais  dans  d'humbles  maisonnettes 
Des  vieillards  sans  vigueur  et  des  gamins  tremblants, 
Parce  qu'autour  de  toi  brillaient  les  bai'onnettes 
Au  bout  des  fusils  vigilants  !  " 

The  psychology  of  the  modern  German  is  the  object 
of  the  analysis  of  M.  Zamacois,  who  builds  up,  like  a 
poetical  public  prosecutor,  his  stringent  case  against  the 
accused.  It  is  sometimes  questioned  whether  any  good 

purpose  is  served  by  these  exposures.     The  answer  is 
M 


1 62  Inter  Arma 


that  crimes  deserve  punishment,  and  that  it  is  well  that 
the  poet's  disgust  should  be  graven  in  acid  on  the  brow 
of  the  criminal.  In  the  case  of  the  Germans  there  is 
more  than  crime  :  there  is  inexplicable  infatuation.  If 
I  may  give  an  instance,  which  has  not  been  made 
public  and  has  reached  me  from  its  source  in  France,  I 
will  relate  a  story  which  might  well  inspire  M.  Zamacoi's. 
In  the  varying  fortunes  of  the  line  in  Lorraine,  the 
Germans  captured  a  village  which  had  resisted  them. 
The  officer  in  command  had  all  the  houses  set  aflame, 
and  then  collected  his  men  in  the  church.  Making  them 
stand  near  the  door,  he  commanded  them  to  fire  up  the 
nave  at  the  ciborium,  which  they  smashed,  scattering 
the  Reserved  Host  over  the  altar;  he  then  bid  them 
aim  at  the  chalice,  with  a  like  result.  In  the  wavering 
fortunes  of  the  war,  this  officer  was  captured  by  the 
French,  and  proved  to  be  an  amiable  and  even  pious 
Bavarian.  When  some  time  had  passed,  the  French 
general  reminded  his  prisoner  of  his  act  of  sacrilege,  and 
said,  "  How  could  you,  a  devout  Catholic,  commit  an 
impiety  which  must  endanger  the  salvation  of  your 
soul?  "  The  Bavarian  covered  his  face  with  his  hands, 
and  murmured,  "Oh!  es  war  schrecklich,  schrecklich  !  but 
I  was  ordered  to  do  it !  "  Even  spiritual  suicide  is 
demanded  of  the  slaves  of  Prussian  military  discipline. 

There  has  surely  never  been  a  war  which  has  called 
forth  such  a  quantity  of  fugitive  verse  as  the  present 
one.  I  recollect  no  parallel  to  it  in  modern  history. 
During  the  war  of  1870,  the  silence  of  the  singing-birds 


War  Poetry  in   France  163 

of  France  was  in  the  highest  degree  noticeable;  there 
was  a  complete  cessation  of  sound,  as  in  a  hedgerow 
when  the  hawk  is  there.  Nor  have  our  own  lesser 
contests  been  the  cause  of  much  verse;  I  cannot 
recollect  that  any  poetical  effusion  accompanied  the 
South  African  War.  The  present  abundance  of  poems 
is  perhaps  a  consequence,  and  certainly  a  proof,  of  the 
extraordinary  revival  of  a  taste  for  poetry  which  has 
marked  the  new  century,  and  of  the  discovery  by 
hundreds,  I  had  almost  said  thousands,  of  men  and 
women  in  France  and  England  that  metrical  expression 
of  a  very  decent  excellence  is  easily  within  their  reach. 
Accordingly,  as  in  this  country  we  have  seen  offered  to 
the  public  of  the  newspapers  an  enormous  mass  of 
verse,  very  little  of  which  was  not  marked  by  some 
delicate  and  sincere  observation  or  emotion,  so  in  the 
French  press  there  has  been  a  remarkable  outpouring 
of  ingenious  and  ardent  lyrics  illustrating  one  facet  or 
another  of  the  situation  created  by  the  war.  It  is 
noticeable,  however,  that  the  effect  of  these  pieces  is 
considerably  weakened  by  their  being  brought  together. 
We  have  seen  this  in  England,  where  the  too-hastily- 
edited  collections  of  miscellaneous  poems  have  produced 
rather  a  deplorable  effect. 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  only  one  such  collection  has 
yet  been  made  in  France,  but  in  turning  over  the 
pages  of  Les  Poetes  de  la  Guerre  I  am  conscious  of 
the  same  disadvantage.  The  poets  are  forty-one  in 
number,  and  their  zeal,  patriotism,  and  high  spirit 


164  Inter  Arma 


unite  them  in  a  fervent  chorus.  Several  of  their  pieces, 
when  they  happened  to  catch  the  eye  in  the  newspapers 
where  they  originally  appeared,  affected  me  keenly. 
Why,  then,  is  it  that,  bound  together  side  by  side,  they 
seem  to  have  lost  their  freshness,  and  to  have  become, 
in  a  certain  measure,  importunate  and  perfunctory? 
I  can  account  for  it  only  on  the  supposition  with 
which  I  opened  these  remarks,  that  the  poet  of  war, 
like  the  poet  of  religion,  has  to  sacrifice  the  fineness  of 
his  art  to  the  directness  of  his  task.  He  cannot  throw 
into  the  "  Olney  Hymns  "  the  beauty  of  the  "  Sonnets 
from  the  Portuguese,"  and  his  task  being  one  of  edifica- 
tion, the  more  he  tries  to  adorn  the  plain  tale  he  has 
to  tell,  the  more  its  spiritual  significance  evades  him. 
He  must  be  Deroulede  or  Botrel — in  other  words,  he 
must  resign  all  ambition  to  write  as  an  artist — if  he  is 
to  produce  his  direct  and  durable  impression. 

The  forty-one  poets  belong  rather  to  the  older  than 
the  present  generation.  We  do  not  find  among  them 
any  of  the  names  which  have  attracted  notice  for  the 
first  time  recently,  while  those  who  have  been  con- 
spicuous for  experiment  or  revolt  are  entirely  absent. 
The  young  poets  are  fighting  for  their  country,  and 
several,  alas  !  like  Charles  Peguy,  and  the  tender  Emile 
Despax,  author  of  La  Maison  des  Glycines,  and  Robert 
d'Humieres,  the  translator  of  Rudyard  Kipling,  have 
already  fallen  on  the  field  of  honour.  The  Poetes  de 
la  Guerre  have  a  slightly  old-fashioned  air,  and  are  none 
the  worse  for  that ;  they  are  non-combatants,  but  their 


War  Poetry  in   France  165 

hearts  are  in  the  battle.  Here  is  a  spiritual  and,  we 
trust,  prophetic  sonnet,  beginning  "  Wilhelm,  1'Enfer 
t'attend,"  signed  by  the  oldest  of  the  French  poets, 
the  octogenarian  M.  Stephane  Liegeard,  who  was  the 
last  French  deputy  for  Thionville,  and  knows  the  tricks 
of  the  bandits  of  the  Rhine.  Many  belated  Parnassians 
find  their  place  among  the  Forty-One,  names  once 
familiar,  and  now  reawakened  by  the  national  crisis; 
such  are  M.  Auguste  Dorchain,  and  M.  fimile  Hinzelin, 
and  M.  Jacques  Normand,  and  M.  Jean  Rameau,  the 
last  of  whom  sends  some  stinging  quatrains  on  the  Iron 
Cross — 

"  Ce  joujou  de  fer  gris  est  drole 
Et  ne  fait  pas  mal  au  cote, 
Mais,  rouge  et  grave  sur  1'epaule, 
Ce  serait  beaucoup  mieux  porte." 

M.  Raoul  Ponchon,  author  of  so  many  gazettes  rimees 
in  the  newspapers,  is  another  old  friend,  and  so  is 
Fran$ois  Fabie,  a  peasant-poet  from  the  Rouergue,  who 
for  thirty  years  past  has  been  a  sort  of  John  Clare  of 
France,  and  represents  with  simplicity  and  sweetness 
"  la  petite  patrie."  And  here,  among  the  Forty-One, 
we  find  more  illustrious  figures,  Madame  de  Noailles, 
and  M.  Edmond  Rostand,  and  M.  Paul  Fort. 

I  mention  this  name  last,  for  it  is  that  on  which 
I  desire  to  insist  the  longest.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  some  five  years  ago,  after  the  death  of  Leon  Diercx, 
who  had  borne  the  princely  title  in  succession  to  Stephane 
Mallarme,  M.  Paul  Fort  was  elected  "  Prince  "  of  the 


1 66  Inter  Arma 


French  poets  by  a  large  majority.  This  little  ceremony 
of  choosing  a  leader  combines  in  a  rather  droll  way 
the  ancient  traditions  of  Toulouse  or  Narbonne  with 
the  enterprise  of  a  newspaper-office.  It  would  not  be 
wise  to  claim  too  much  divine  right  for  a  monarch  so 
capriciously  elected,  for  a  laureate  who,  like  a  king  of 
Poland,  is  made  rather  than  created.  But  the  voters 
have  each  time  shown  themselves  men  of  taste,  and  a 
dynasty  containing  the  successive  names  of  Mallarme, 
Diercx,  Paul  Fort,  is  a  royal  house  that  has  a  history. 
M.  Fort  is  in  several  respects  a  representative  writer, 
and  it  gave  evidence  of  the  moderate  and  sympathetic 
nature  of  his  mind  that  the  suffrages  of  so  many  schools 
of  poetry  could  be  united  in  his  regard.  He  has,  from 
the  first,  been  remarkable  for  the  extreme,  perhaps  the 
dangerous,  fluidity  of  his  language.  He  is  like  Victor 
Hugo  in  this,  if  in  nothing  else,  that  no  subject  or  mood 
presents  any  difficulty  of  expression  to  him.  He  flows, 
like  a  tide,  over  the  sandbanks  and  the  reefs  of  language, 
flooding  his  subject  with  an  even,  ardent  and  melodious 
mastery,  beneath  which  are  concealed  problems  of  style 
which  would  daunt  any  other  living  writer — except, 
perhaps,  and  in  a  totally  different  way,  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy. 

Whether  from  this  amazing  facility  in  bending  language 
to  his  will,  or  whether  from  the  concentrated  violence  of 
his  emotion,  or  rather,  perhaps,  from  these  two  causes 
acting  on  each  other,  M.  Paul  Fort  has  succeeded  more 
completely  than  any  other  poet  in  producing  a  monu- 


War   Poetry  in  France  167 

ment  of  art,  as  distinguished  from  improvisation,  entirely 
devoted  to  the  results  and  preoccupations  of  the  War. 
With  a  full  sense  of  the  virile  beauty  of  Rupert  Brooke's 
"  1914  "  sonnets,  we  place  at  their  side,  because  of  its 
plenitude  and  variety,  the  exquisite  collection  of  M. 
Paul  Fort's  Poemes  de  France.  If  we  take  Botrel's 
Chants  du  Bivouac  as  the  most  vivid  lyrical  utterance 
of  the  soldier  fighting  at  the  front,  we  must  place 
beside  it,  as  the  work  of  French  poetic  art  which 
most  marvellously  interprets  the  subtle  and  poignant 
reveries  of  the  non-combatant  patriot,  this  "  bulletin 
de  la  guerre  "  by  M.  Paul  Fort. 

We  have  all  observed  the  peculiar  effect  on  landscape 
produced  by  an  impending  change  from  hot  dry  weather 
to  rain.  The  colour  of  every  natural  obj  ect  is  intensified  ; 
the  grey  hills  turn  more  than  blue,  they  become  purple, 
with  intermittent  gauze  of  violet.  The  sky  grows  more 
luminous,  the  sea  more  azure,  trees  greener  and  flowers 
more  brilliant  than  is  quite  normal,  and  the  agitation 
of  storm  and  change  is  felt  in  the  breathless  thrill  of 
nature.  In  reading  the  Poemes  de  France  we  are 
conscious  of  a  like  effect.  Everything  is  drawn  up  to 
a  pitch,  not  of  exaggeration,  but  of  high  clairvoyance 
and  sensitiveness ;  everything  bends  to  M.  Fort's  plastic 
mastery  of  language ;  nothing  is  too  slight,  too  solemn, 
too  tender,  too  gorgeous  to  receive  its  meed  of  atten- 
tion. Rossetti,  in  a  phrase  often  quoted  and  sometimes 
misinterpreted,  announced  that  poetry,  to  make  its 
effect,  must  be  "  amusing."  Amusing  is  this  body  of 


1 68  Inter  Arma 


lyrics  in  the  true  sense,  exciting,  various,  all  alive  with 
its  anecdotes,  its  footnotes,  its  asides,  its  sudden  daring 
flights  into  the  empyrean,  its  swoopings  into  domesticity. 

M.  Fort  begins  with  an  ode  on  the  destruction  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Reims,  dedicated  to  "  monstrous  General 
Baron  von  Plattenberg,"  its  infamous  destroyer.  The 
poet  was  born  opposite  the  glorious  church  in  an  old 
house  close  to  the  "  Lion  d'Or,"  that  hospitable  inn 
dear  to  many  wandering  Englishmen.  He  mourns, 
again  and  again,  over  the  wanton  ruin  of  Senlis,  an 
act  which  has  roused  a  peculiar  ferment  of  indignation 
in  French  bosoms.  He  gives  an  extraordinarily  vivid 
account  of  how  the  fact  of  war  was  announced  to  himself, 
early  on  that  August  morning,  in  his  peaceful  country 
home,  by  the  rattling  of  the  drums  in  the  village  street. 
These  are  the  themes  round  which  M.  Fort  weaves  his 
skein  of  brilliant  silken  threads — the  tranquillity  and 
beauty  of  France,  the  violence  of  the  shock  of  invasion, 
the  horrible  gluttony  of  destruction  on  the  part  of  the 
invaders.  He  is  full  of  irony,  of  anger,  of  tenderness; 
he  exhibits,  waving  it  like  a  banner,  an  immense  feeling 
of  pride  in  the  landscape  of  France. 

In  "  Ce  que  nous  defendons "  he  celebrates,  with 
lingering  detail,  the  beauties  of  all  the  provinces  of  his 
country — 

"  Oui !  le  Beam  au  loin  souffre  dans  des  cerises;  la 
Provence,  ou  la  rose  est  plus  que  1'aube  exquise,  emeut 
d'un  froid  mistral  ses  oranges  sanguines,  elles  tombent ; 


War  Poetry  in   France  169 

et  ce  vent,  roses,  vous  assassine;  la  Guyenne  aeree 
empoussiere  ses  vignes." 

(The  reader  probably  does  not  need  to  be  reminded  that 
since  the  beginning  of  his  career  M.  Paul  Fort  has 
persisted,  nobody  knows  why,  in  printing  his  verses — 
and  very  good  verses  they  are — as  if  they  were  prose. 
We  respect  his  foible,  though  we  are  tempted  to  break 
his  periods  into  metre.)  His  stanzas,  with  their  rich 
praise  of  all  these  varied  and  wonderful  provinces, 
form  a  great  bouquet  of  odour  and  colour.  He  pays 
us  a  charming  compliment :  "II  n'est  que  les  Anglais 
et  nous  pour  aimer  finement  la  France."  His  references 
to  the  English  are  invariably  of  a  nature  to  draw  the 
hearts  of  the  two  nations  nearer  to  one  another.  "  Le 
Chant  des  Anglais/'  which  is  a  sort  of  dream-fugue  on 
the  air  of  "  It's  a  long,  long  way  to  Tipperary,"  is 
extremely  touching;  none  the  less,  and  perhaps  all  the 
more,  because  a  pardonable  want  of  familiarity  with 
the  exact  meaning  of  some  of  our  colloquial  phrases 
gives  a  perilously  comic  effect  to  what  is  entirely  serious 
and  tender  in  intention. 

It  is  difficult,  perhaps  in  consequence  of  his  remark- 
able fluidity  of  style,  to  give  a  brief  and  yet  adequate 
impression  of  M.  Fort's  manner.  But  from  the  splendid 
"  Veillee  des  Saints  Patrons  de  France  "  I  may  extract 
one  stanza.  The  saints  have  met,  with  oriflammes  and 
ribbanded  wings,  around  the  Archangel  Michael  on  his 
great  Abbey  of  Mont  St.  Michel,  there  to  proclaim  their 


170  Inter  Arma 


unalterable  fidelity  to  France  in  her  hour  of  torment ; 
and  they  proclaim  joy  and  hope,  for  victory  is  announced 
in  heaven.  The  arrival  of  the  various  saints  is  described 
with  marvellous  vivacity,  and  among  the  brilliant  throng 
sailing  through  the  calm  and  silent  azure  towards  the 
great  abbey  church  on  its  island  there  are  some  legendary 
forms  familiar  to  ourselves — 

"  Le  preux,  le  beau,  le  vrai  saint  Georges  d'Angle- 
terre,  eblouissant  d'eclairs  du  casque  aux  genouilleres, 
haussant  brumeusement  une  Rose  geante  a  la  pointe  du 
glaive,  illuminant,  derriere,  la  subite  venue  de  saint 
Patrick  dTrlande  (oh  !  quels  grands  Trefles  d'or  enguir- 
landent  sa  crosse  !)  et  1'aspect  sauvageon  de  saint  Andre 
d'Ecosse  qui  porte  en  lampes  tristes,  en  veilleuses 
lumieres,  d'immenses  Chardons  bleus  sur  sa  croix  de 
travers.  Que  nous  vient-il  du  nord  ou  des  Anges 
circulent  ?  O  Vierge  du  Brabant !  pure  et  sainte 
Gudule  !  6  bergere  des  Anges,  approchez-vous  de  1'atre. 
Mais  ce  bucher  n'est  rien  au  prix  de  votre  ardeur,  vous 
qui  tenez  modestement  sur  votre  cceur  1'huile  d'Asie 
brulant  dans  la  coupe  d'albatre  !  " 

With  this  we  might  compare  the  glowing  study  of  Russia 
contained  in  "  Les  Cosaques,"  and  the  Italian  pictures 
in  the  longest  and  most  ambitious  poem  of  the  collection, 
the  great  ode  in  honour  of  the  Garibaldis. 

The  greatest  of  wars  is  not  over,  and  we  know  not 
what  surprises  its  development  may  have  in  store  for 


War  Poetry  in  France  171 

us.  But  throughout  France,  so  far  as  her  temper  is 
revealed  in  the  verse  which  the  tremendous  crisis  has 
awakened  in  her  literature,  there  is  an  extraordinary 
unanimity  of  sentiment.  Whether  in  the  songs  her 
soldiers  sing  around  their  camp  fires,  or  in  the  elaborate 
lyrics  of  her  poet-artists,  the  key-note  is  everywhere  the 
same  :  Sursum  corda  !  Throughout  the  French  people 
there  is  a  superb  and  delicate  confidence  of  victory, 
which  does  not  express  itself  in  frantic  shouts  or  ex- 
travagant prophecies,  but  is  gravely  founded  on  the 
determination  of  a  united  people  to  defend  the  father- 
land which  they  never  loved  with  so  devoted  a  passion 
as  they  do  at  this  hour  of  anxiety  and  sorrow. 

July  1915. 


A    FRENCH    SATIRIST   IN 
ENGLAND 


A    FRENCH   SATIRIST   IN 
ENGLAND 

IT  becomes  more  and  more  difficult  to  find  a  place 
in  the  history  of  poetry  for  those  writers  who  are  by 
the  development  of  events  suddenly  inspired  to  express 
their  emotion,  and  who,  when  those  events  have  passed 
by,  find  little  or  nothing  left  to  say.  The  poetry  of 
such  men  partakes  of  the  nature  of  action;  it  is  their 
share  contributed  to  the  energetic  movement  of  their 
age.  But,  increasingly,  we  concentrate  our  attention 
on  the  poets  who  hold  aloof  from  action,  who  write 
with  equal  indifference  to  their  surroundings  whether 
in  a  bower  of  roses  or  on  a  battlefield.  We  do  so  because 
these  are  the  genuine  and  permanent  artists,  whose 
evolution  is  almost  entirely  unaffected  by  their  con- 
ditions. Nevertheless,  we  have  to  take  into  considera- 
tion, also,  the  writers  who  are  stung  into  lyrical  expres- 
sion by  the  vehemence  of  facts,  such  as  Ebenezer  Elliott 
by  the  Corn  Law  agitation,  or  Theodor  Korner  by  the 
War  of  Liberation,  or  on  a  different  level  Paul  Deroulede 
by  the  events  of  1870.  It  makes  our  general  survey 
of  the  art  imperfect  if  we  ignore  these  poets,  simply 
because  they  are  difficult  to  fit  into  our  scheme  of 
aesthetics.  Among  such  men  of  temporary  genius, 


176  Inter  Arma 


manifestly  inspired  by  a  certain  succession  of  events, 
none  is  more  curious  than  the  poet  of  the  Three  Days' 
Revolution,  the  remarkable  Auguste  Barbier,  who  was 
lifted  by  the  magnificence  of  his  lambes  to  the  highest 
apex  of  celebrity  in  1830,  and  who  died,  completely 
forgotten,  in  1882. 

To  comprehend  the  nature  of  Barbier's  contribution 
to  literature,  we  have  to  remind  ourselves  of  the  world 
upon  which  he  made  his  violent  and  brief  attack.  A 
young  man  of  five-and-twenty,  hitherto  unknown,  he 
reeled  on  to  the  scene  of  Paris  in  a  state  of  feverish 
exaltation,  intoxicated  with  extravagant  democracy, 
and  waving  a  lighted  torch  in  his  hand.  The  wood  of 
public  opinion  blazed  at  once,  for  it  was  absolutely 
ready  for  conflagration.  The  public  seized  upon 
Barbier's  first  satires,  on  "La  Curee,"  "  L'Idole,"  and 
"  Popularite "  in  particular,  because  they  expressed, 
in  very  fine  verse,  the  sentiment  of  revolution  which 
could  not  be  suppressed  a  moment  longer.  Joseph  de 
Maistre  had  prophesied  that  there  would  surely  be 
risings  among  the  people,  and  the  futility  of  Charles  X 
had  gradually  precipitated  a  change  in  France. 

From  the  earliest  days  of  1830,  it  was  evident  to 
close  observers  that  everything  was  tending  towards  a 
revolution  in  Paris.  On  the  3rd  of  January  a  new  j  ournal, 
Le  National,  had  begun  to  appear,  under  the  editorship 
of  Armand  Carrel,  and  this  at  once  became  the  organ 
of  a  new  anti-royalist  party;  it  was  immensely  read. 
Young  Barbier,  and  others  of  his  kind,  were  told  in 


A   French   Satirist  in   England      177 

its  columns  that  men  must  not  be  spared  if  France 
was  to  be  free.  Meanwhile  the  King  stiffened  himself 
to  an  absurd  resistance;  in  March  he  responded  in 
menacing  language  to  the  humble  remonstrance  of  the 
Chamber,  though  presented  by  Guizot  and  Royer- 
Collard,  and  he  prorogued  Parliament  for  six  months. 
Talleyrand  advised  the  ministers  to  buy  themselves 
estates  in  Switzerland,  for  their  work  in  France  was  over. 
Charles  X,  supported  by  Polignac,  refused  all  compro- 
mise, all  argument  with  the  Liberals ;  he  was  determined 
to  be  master  in  France ;  he  said  that  what  had  cost  his 
brother  Louis  XVI  his  head  had  been  his  deplorable 
tendency  to  concession.  He,  for  his  part,  if  the  people 
dared  to  be  troublesome,  would  scourge  them  with 
scorpions.  On  the  26th  of  July  his  four  famous  ordi- 
nances were  published  in  the  Moniteur ;  they  sup- 
pressed the  liberty  of  the  press,  declared  the  Chamber 
dissolved,  disfranchised  three-quarters  of  the  electors, 
and  summoned  the  surviving  fourth  to  choose  a  new 
Chamber. 

That  same  evening  an  angry  crowd  gathered  before 
the  Palais  Royal,  and  Polignac  escaped  from  the  midst 
of  it  on  its  march  by  leaping  from  his  carriage  and 
running  like  a  hare.  Next  morning  barricades  began 
to  rise  in  the  streets,  and  at  night  blood  began  to  flow. 
General  Marmont,  who  had  been  given  the  command  of 
Paris,  wrote  to  the  King,  "  This  has  ceased  to  be  a  riot ; 
it  has  become  a  revolution."  But  Charles  X,  who  was 
at  St.  Cloud,  affected  to  observe  nothing;  while  the 


178  Inter  Arma 


tocsin  rang  he  dined  at  his  usual  hour,  took  his  walk 
on  the  terrace,  played  with  the  royal  children  till  their 
bedtime,  and  then  settled  to  his  game  of  whist.  All 
night  the  sound  of  hammers  and  saws  filled  the  air, 
and  when  morning  broke  on  the  28th  the  tricolour  was 
floating  from  all  the  spires,  and  the  whole  eastern 
section  of  Paris  was  in  the  hands  of  the  insurgents. 
On  the  29th,  the  Louvre,  with  Marmont  in  it,  was 
captured  by  the  people,  who  then  entered  the  Tuileries 
without  resistance.  The  Duke  of  Orleans  put  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  populace,  and  Charles  X  fled  to 
Rambouillet,  where  he  abdicated  on  the  2nd  of  August, 
1830.  The  briefest  and  one  of  the  least  bloody  of 
revolutions  was  over. 

When  this  revolution  broke  out,  the  news  of  it  reached 
a  young  man  of  twenty-five,  who  was  buried  in  the 
country,  on  an  estate  in  the  department  of  Seine-et- 
Marne.  What  he  was  doing  there,  or  how  he  had  been 
occupied  up  to  that  moment,  does  not  seem  to  be  re- 
corded, for  no  biography  of  August e  Barbier  has  ever 
been  published.  All  we  know  is  that  he  sought  out 
General  Jouanez,  who  was  a  resident  of  the  same  village, 
and  gained  permission  to  accompany  him  to  Paris. 
Every  violent  and  eager  spirit  was  being  drawn  to  the 
capital  by  the  passion  of  change.  The  friends  arrived 
on  the  3 ist  of  July,  to  find  Paris  in  all  the  chaos  of 
civil  war.  They  could  not  pass  the  barricades  at 
Charenton,  and  so  had  to  make  a  long  round  and  get 
in  by  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine.  They  met  wild  troops 


A   French   Satirist  in   England      179 

of  citizens  shouting,  and,  in  the  midst  of  the  turmoil 
a  young  man,  "  en  moustache  et  en  habit  bourgeois," 
clasped  Jouanez  in  his  arms  and  shouted,  "  Mon  General, 
le  peuple  a  ete  sublime  !  "  Barbier  left  them  folded  in 
this  enthusiastic  embrace,  and  descended  the  narrow  and 
winding  streets  alone  till  he  came  out  by  the  Arcade 
St.  Jean  on  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  There  he  had  a  shock 
of  surprise,  for  the  whole  fagade  was  riddled  with  shots, 
tricolour  flags  were  waving  from  every  window,  and 
crowds  of  citizens,  in  the  highest  possible  spirits,  were 
entering  and  leaving  the  hotel  like  bees  swarming  in 
and  out  of  a  hive. 

The  sight  of  the  very  scene  of  the  fiercest  battle  of 
democracy  excited  in  Barbier  a  superhuman  emotion. 
He  gazed  at  it  for  a  long  time,  and  when  at  last  he  turned 
away  it  was  with  a  beating  heart  and  a  tingling  brain. 
He  wandered  along  the  quays,  and  the  passion  that  was 
in  him  began  to  churn  into  music.  There  seems  to  be 
no  record  of  his  having  previously  indulged  the  ambition 
to  be  a  poet,  but  "  La  Curee  " — which  has  some  claim  to 
be  considered  the  most  splendid  political  poem  ever 
written — formed  itself  in  him  as  he  walked  along.  It 
is  as  curious  a  case  as  occurs  in  the  history  of  literature 
of  the  sudden  revealing  of  a  vocation.  There  was  much 
satiric  poetry  in  that  exciting  time;  there  were  the 
songs  of  Beranger,  which  contributed  largely  to  the  fall 
of  the  Bourbons ;  there  were  the  "  Insurrection  "  of 
Barthelemy  and  Mery,  the  copious  "  Messeniennes  "  of 
Casimir  Delavigne,  but  all  these  are  now  impossible  to 


180  Inter  Arma 


read,  the  dreadful  rhetoric  of  Casimir  being  particularly 
impenetrable.  But  the  unique  feature  of  "La  Cur6e  " 
is  the  freshness  of  its  vehemence,  the  vitality  of  its 
serried  drum-taps.  After  more  than  eighty  years, 
what  pulse  but  must  be  stirred  by  such  verse  as 
this— 


"  C'est  que  la  Liberte  n'est  pas  une  comtesse 

Du  noble  faubourg  Saint-Germain, 
Une  femme  qu'un  cri  fait  tomber  en  faiblesse, 

Qui  met  du  blanc  et  du  carmin  : 
C'est  une  forte  femme  aux  puissantes  mamelles, 

A  la  voix  rauque,  aux  durs  appas, 
Qui,  du  brun  sur  la  peau,  du  feu  dans  les  prunelles, 

Agile  et  marchant  a  grands  pas, 
Se  plait  aux  cris  du  peuple,  aux  sanglantes  melees, 

Aux  longs  roulements  des  tambours, 
A  1'odeur  de  la  poudre,  aux  lointaines  voices 

Des  cloches  et  des  canons  sourds; 
Qui  ne  prend  ses  amours  que  dans  la  populace; 

Qui  ne  prete  son  large  flanc 
Qu'£  des  gens  forts  comme  elle,  et  qui  veut  qu'on  1'embrasse 

Avec  des  bras  rouges  de  sang." 


There  was  no  other  voice  like  it  to  be  heard  in  France, 
and  more  than  a  year  was  to  pass  before  Victor  Hugo 
began  his  career  as  a  political  poet  with  Les  Feuilles 
d'Automne.  Nothing  could  be  more  emphatic  than 
the  sudden  accomplishment  of  the  young  Tyrtseus  of 
the  barricade,  and  a  few  hours  after  "  La  Curee  "  was 
printed  in  the  Revue  de  Paris  the  fame  of  its  author 
was  universal. 

Auguste  Barbier  had  been  brought  up  in  the  fear  and 


A   French  Satirist  in  England      1 8 1 

hatred  of  the  legitimate  regime.  He  loathed  the  very 
notion  of  a  king,  and  it  is  notable  that,  while  all  the 
other  romantics  cultivated  a  worship  for  Napoleon, 
Barbier  flouted  the  memory  of  the  great  Emperor  as 
scornfully  as  he  did  the  actual  presence  of  Charles  X 
and  Louis  Philippe.  His  bellicose  satires,  so  many 
blasts  on  the  trumpet  of  democracy,  were  collected 
early  in  1831,  under  the  title  of  lambes,  and  they 
achieved  an  unparalleled  success.  For  a  moment, 
Barbier  was  easily  the  first  poet  of  France.  His  biblical 
imprecations  roused  the  nation  like  the  accents  of  a 
new  Ezekiel.  Lamartine  said  that  he  had  equalled 
Pindar  and  surpassed  Juvenal.  Balzac  said  that 
Barbier  and  Lamartine  were  the  only  great  poets  of  the 
epoch.  Sainte-Beuve,  who  afterwards  turned  against 
Barbier  and  repudiated  him,  was  dazzled  in  1831  by 
his  extraordinary  intrepidity  in  marshalling  "  the  most 
perilous  images  that  ever  a  poet  attempted."  The  aged 
Rouget  de  Lisle  read  the  lambes  in  his  retirement  at 
Choisy-le-Roi,  and  murmured  a  Nunc  dimittis.  The 
ardent  love  of  liberty  and  the  impetuous  virility  of 
style  which  animated  these  rhetorical  lyrics  concealed 
for  the  moment  their  defects,  and  from  1830  to  1835 
Barbier  lived  in  a  blaze  of  glory.  But  then  his  in- 
spiration rapidly  declined;  after  1837  ne  scarcely  pub- 
lished anything;  forty- five  years  later  he  died  at  Nice 
(February  13,  1882),  utterly  neglected. 

So  much  it  has  seemed  necessary  to  say  about  a  poet 
who  has  become  a  name  and  little  more  to  living  readers. 


1 82  Inter  Arma 


But  I  do  not  propose  upon  this  occasion  to  dwell  on 
the  merits  of  the  once-famous  lambes  or  on  the 
general  history  of  Auguste  Barbier.  I  wish  to  call 
attention  to  a  volume  of  verse  which  has  had  a  very 
remarkable  fate,  and  which  possesses  a  peculiar  interest 
for  English  readers.  It  has  the  quality  of  being  not 
merely  entirely  forgotten,  but  of  never  having  been 
remembered.  The  great  celebrity  of  Barbier  lasted,  as 
we  have  said,  through  the  three  or  four  earliest  years 
of  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe,  and  then  declined.  Two 
years  after  the  publication  of  the  lambes,  in  1833,  he 
brought  out  a  second  collection  of  poems,  //  Pianto, 
descriptive  of  a  sentimental  visit  which  he  had  paid 
in  the  preceding  year  to  "  noble  et  douce  Italic,  6  mere 
du  vrai  beau."  This  was  well  received,  but  without 
enthusiasm.  What  people  had  enjoyed  was  Barbier's 
imprecations  in  accents  of  brass;  they  cared  less  for 
his  whisperings  through  silver.  Disagreeable  things 
began  to  be  said  about  him.  Alfred  de  Musset,  in  a  cruel 
satire,  painted  Auguste  Barbier  as  a  breathless  little 
man,  hurried  along  by  four  giantesses,  his  four  favourite 
metaphors,  who  held  him  tightly  by  the  collar  and 
throttled  him.  A  contemporary  panegyrist  had  com- 
pared the  poet  of  the  lambes  to  a  naked  athlete, 
suddenly  leaping  on  a  stage  that  was  occupied  by  little 
dancers  in  ribbands  of  silk  and  stars  of  tinsel.  But 
when  the  athlete  rigged  out  his  own  limbs  in  the  tinsel 
and  silk  of  romantic  poetry  the  democracy  began  to  be 
bored  with  him. 


A   French   Satirist  in  England      183 

He  determined,  it  would  seem,  to  be  a  naked  athlete 
once  more,  but  the  early  career  of  Louis  Philippe  gave 
his  muse  no  opportunity  of  startling  Paris.  Barbier 
therefore  formed  the  strange  plan  of  invading  England 
with  a  definite  intention  of  attacking  its  social  order. 
From  a  passage  in  one  of  the  vague  essays  of  his  old  age 
we  learn  that  he  was  in  London  through  a  part  of  1836, 
and  it  was  doubtless  at  this  time  that  he  made  the 
observations  which  inspire  the  fiery  versification  of 
his  next  volume,  Lazare,  which  appeared  in  Paris  in 
1837.  This  is  a  series  of  lyrical  poems,  often  very 
elaborate  in  form,  exclusively  occupied  with  the  dispraise 
of  England.  Various  eminent  characters,  and  notably 
Heine,  whom  Barbier  met  at  Boulogne  a  little  later, 
have  expressed  their  dislike  of  our  country,  or  our 
language,  or  our  manners,  in  splenetic  numbers,  but 
I  know  no  other  case  in  which  a  poet  of  renown  has 
filled  an  entire  volume  with  nothing  else.  Moreover, 
the  fate  of  Lazore  is  almost  unique.  It  has  never,  in 
these  eighty  years,  been,  I  believe,  so  much  as  men- 
tioned by  any  English  writer,  while  the  decline  in  Bar- 
bier's  popularity  and  the  altered  feeling  about  England 
in  France  led  to  its  being  almost  entirely  ignored  in 
Paris  when  it  was  published.  It  was  a  diatribe  against 
the  social  life  of  England  in  the  last  year  of  William  IV, 
but  before  the  author  could  publish  it  the  girlish  Victoria 
was  on  the  throne,  and  the  gallantry  of  France  awoke 
to  greet  a  new  English  monarch.  The  Lazare  of 
Barbier  is  therefore  as  little  known  as  any  work  of  its 


184  Inter  Arma 


intrinsic  merit  in  the  literature  of  Europe,  and  it 
seems  worth  reviving,  if  only  as  an  historical  curiosity. 
Whether  the  recall  of  Talleyrand  ("  old  Talley  "),  whom 
Palmerston  had  deeply  offended,  had  anything  to 
do  with  Barbier's  anger,  I  must  leave  the  political 
historians  to  decide,  but  there  is  some  reason  to  think 
that  the  poet  was  admitted  to  the  counsels  of  the  old 
diplomatist  after  1834. 

The  Prologue  to  Lazare  is  supposed  to  be  spoken 
by  the  poet  as  he  leaves  the  coast  of  France  to  step  on 
board  that  great  coal-ship,  smoking  on  the  bosom  of 
Ocean,  which  calls  itself  "  Angleterre."  He  announces 
the  intention  of  his  visit,  which  is  to  explore  the  horrors 
of  our  social  system ;  and  it  is  observable  that  he  starts 
with  anything  but  what  can  be  called  an  open  mind. 
His  attitude  is  solemn  and  in  truth  a  little  inexplicable. 
He  quotes  a  divine  command  to  investigate  and  report 
upon  the  shocking  condition  of  England.  Lazarus, 
whom  he  is  about  to  defend,  is,  by  a  strained  metaphor, 
the  English  democracy,  borne  whither  it  would  not  go 
by  the  strident  machinery  of  the  English  State.  The  poet 
professes  to  believe  that  he  runs  great  danger  by  unveiling 
whatever  it  may  be  that  he  shall  find  to  unveil.  England 
ceases  to  be  a  coaling  steamer  and  becomes  a  cliff-bound 
island  as  he  intones — 

"  Je  connais  les  debris  qui  recouvrent  la  plage, 

Les  mats  rompus  et  les  corps  morts; 
Mais  il  est  dans  le  ciel  un  Dieu  qui  m'encourage 
Et  qui  m'entraine  loin  des  bords." 


A   French  Satirist  in  England      185 

He  anticipates  horror,  but  prays  that  he  may 
preserve  truth.  God  has  sent  him  forth,  a  tiny  David, 
to  pierce  with  the  missile  of  verse  the  forehead  of  the 
giant  Philistine,  Albion.  Surely,  no  holiday  bard  ever 
approached  a  country  at  peace  with  his  own  in  so 
astonishing  a  spirit  of  defiance  ! 

He  withdraws  from  Boulogne,  to  reappear  in  London, 
which  affects  him  with  terror  as  it  has  affected  many 
imaginative  visitors  from  abroad,  as  fifty  years  later 
it  affected  our  great  Belgian  friend,  Verhaeren.  In 
Barbier's  descriptions,  the  absence  of  humour  and  the 
want  of  all  relation  with  past  experience  combine  to 
make  the  picture  extravagantly  dark.  But  such  lines 
as  the  following,  in  spite  of  their  exaggeration,  may  be 
read  with  the  contemporary  commentary  of  Dickens — 

"Des  chantiers  en  travail,  des  magasins  ouverts, 
Capables  de  tenir  dans  leurs  flancs  1'univers; 
Puis,  un  ciel  tourmente,  nuage  sur  nuage; 
Le  soleil,  comme  un  mort,  le  drap  sur  le  visage. 
Ou,  parfois,  dans  les  flots  d'un  air  empoisonne 
Montrant  comme  un  mineur  son  front  tout  charbonne; 
Enfin,  dans  un  amas  de  choses,  sombre,  immense, 
Un  peuple  noir,  vivant  et  mourant  en  silence." 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  parallel  these  dismal 
lines  by  pages  in  Oliver  Twist,  which  was  at  that  moment 
being  written. 

Barbier  did  not  fail  to  pay  an  early  visit  to  Bedlam, 
that  "  monument  de  crainte  et  de  douleur,"  which  was 
then  one  of  the  dreadful  shows  in  which  foreigners 


1 86  Inter  Arma 


delighted.  It  had  lately  been  removed  from  its  old 
station  in  Little  Moorfields  to  the  other  side  of  the 
Thames.  The  famous  Hospital  of  St.  Mary  Bethlem 
produced  upon  the  mind  of  the  French  poet  an  effect 
more  terrible  than  that  of  a  sea  in  storm,  more  hideous 
than  that  of  a  conflagration,  and  he  was  haunted  for 
days  and  nights  by 

"  L'aspect  tumultueux  des  pauvres  creatures 
Qui  vivent,  6  Bedlam  !    sous  tes  voutes  obscures  !  " 

A  touch  of  national  vanity  seems  to  animate  the 
violent  poem,  one  of  the  least  inspired  in  the  volume, 
which  Barbier  dedicates  to  this  distressing  subject, 
since  Charenton,  which  answered  in  Paris  to  Bedlam  in 
London,  had  recently  been  reformed  by  the  enlightened 
Dr.  Esquirol,  who  had  introduced  into  the  arrangement 
and  discipline  of  the  great  French  asylum  all  kinds  of 
improvements.  Although  the  Quakers  had  done  much 
to  ameliorate  the  general  condition  of  lunatics  in  some 
parts  of  England,  their  humanities  had  made  little 
impression  as  yet  in  Bedlam,  where  the  French  poet, 
in  1836,  saw  the  unhappy  patients  chained  to  the  walls 
and  crippled  with  leglocks  and  coercion-chairs.  Nor 
is  he  at  all  ahead  of  public  opinion  in  his  time.  He 
admits,  naively  enough,  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  examine  this  interesting  "  tableau "  of  lunacy  if 
the  patients  were  not  secured  with  handcuffs  and 
strait-waistcoats.  If  the  maniacs  were  free  to  wander 
about — 


A   French   Satirist  in   England      187 

"  Ah  !    malheur  aux  humains 
Qui  tomberaient  alors  sous  ses  robustes  mains." 

But  his  rage  against  England  breaks  out  at  the 
end,  when  he  tells  Bedlam  that  its  "  temple  "  is  fitly 
peopled  by  those  who  worship  the  national  goddess  of 
Dementia — 

"  Et  que  le  ciel  brumeux  de  la  sombre  Angleterre 
Peut  servir  largement  de  dome  au  sanctuaire," 

a  rather  lumbering  way  of  saying  that  all  Englishmen 
are  practically  mad.  "  Bedlam  "  is  a  bad  poem,  and 
its  injustice  is  patent,  for  England  was  no  worse  in 
respect  of  its  treatment  of  lunatics  than  other  countries. 
A  pity  for  insanity,  a  new  sympathy,  was  being  shown 
by  many  artists,  and  we  may  remember  a  terrible 
picture  by  Goya  and  a  still  more  sombre  passage  in 
Shelley's  "  Julian  and  Maddalo,"  but  neither  the  poet 
nor  the  painter  represented  the  conditions  they  illus- 
trated as  being  specially  to  the  shame  of  Spanish  or  of 
Italian  humanity. 

The  moment  when  Barbier  visited  London  appears 
to  have  been  the  darkest  in  our  history  with  regard  to 
the  drinking  of  gin  among  the  poor.  Traill  points  out 
that  the  excesses  of  the  gin-shops  had  led  in  1834  t°  a 
condition  which  created  the  greatest  alarm  among  such 
would-be  social  reformers  as  then  existed,  and  indeed 
from  that  date  onwards  there  began  to  be  a  diminution, 
slight  at  first,  but  continuous,  in  the  proportion  of  spirit- 


Inter  Arma 


licences  to  the  population.  An  amateur  census  had 
revealed  the  terrific  fact  that  a  quarter  of  a  million 
persons  visited  the  gin-shops  within  a  single  week, 
18,000  of  them  being  children.  Barbier  seems  to 
have  witnessed  some  heartrending  scenes.  In  the  poem 
called  "  Le  Gin  "  he  says — 

"  L'enfance  rose  et  se  seche  et  se  fane; 
Les  frais  vieillards  souillent  leurs  cheveux  blancs; 
Les  matelots  desertent  les  haubans; 
Et  par  le  froid,  le  brouillard  et  la  bise, 
La  femme  vend  jusques  a  sa  chemise." 

A  year  before  the  Frenchman  came  amongst  us,  so 
cruelly  "  taking  notes,"  a  Select  Committee  of  the  House 
of  Commons  had  sat  to  discuss  what  steps  could  be 
taken  to  diminish  the  horrors  of  drunkenness.  But  the 
public  would  have  none  of  the  reforms,  such  as  Sunday 
closing  and  the  reduction  of  duties  on  tea,  coffee,  and 
sugar,  which  the  Select  Committee  proposed.  The 
inhabitants  of  London  still  preferred,  in  a  degree  which 
we  now  find  it  difficult  to  conceive,  to  have  their  swinish 
wallowing  in  Gin  Lane  unconfined  by  law.  William  IV 
had  the  majority  of  his  subjects  with  him  when  he  railed 
against  the  effeminacy  of  temperance,  and  it  is  well 
known  that  he  forbade  the  drinking  of  water  in  the  royal 
household.  Modern  teetotalism  begins,  oddly  enough, 
in  the  very  year  in  which  Barbier  wrote  his  stringent 
verses. 

The  French  poet  describes  gin  as  being  the  universal 


A   French  Satirist  in   England      189 

drink  of  Londoners ;  but,  as  he  speaks  of  its  "  flot 
d'or,"  it  is  possible  that  he  confounded  it  with  whisky. 
Whether  alone  or  with  its  golden  sister,  however,  he 
declares  gin  to  be  the  goddess  of  the  great  cities  of 
England,  and  in  one  of  those  bold  images  of  which  he 
still  had  the  secret  he  cries — 

"  Helas  !    la  Mort  est  bientot  a  1'ouvrage, 
Et  pour  repondre  a  la  clameur  sauvage, 
Son  maigre  bras  frappe  comme  un  taureau 
Le  peuple  anglais  au  sortir  du  caveau." 

On  every  hand  the  poet  sees  the  mortality  and  de- 
gradation which  dog  the  steps  of  drunkenness,  and  he 
spares  no  scorn  for  the  depravity  of  the  English  people. 
Here  and  there  a  moralist  may  protest,  and  may  try 
to  rouse  public  opinion  to  the  national  disgrace.  In 

vain — 

"  Partout  le  Gin  et  chancelle  et  s'abime, 
Partout  la  Mort  emporte  sa  victime." 

It  is  amusing,  to  say  the  least,  to  find  the  French 
satirist  of  1836  using  the  same  metaphor  which  was 
made  so  famous  by  W.  T.  Stead  half  a  century  later, 
and  giving  the  title  of  "  Le  Minotaure  "  to  a  flaming 
denunciation  of  what  we  have  now  learned  to  call  the 
White  Slave  Traffic.  One  wonders  where,  in  that 
reticent  age,  he  found  his  statistics,  but  he  has  no 
hesitation  in  declaring  that — 

"  Le  vieux  Londres  a  besoin  d'immoler  tous  les  ans 
A  ses  amours  honteux  plus  de  cinquante  enfants  ! 


190  Inter  Arma 


Pour  son  vaste  appetit  il  ravage  la  ville, 

II  depeuple  les  champs,  et  par  soixante  mille, 

Soixante  mille  au  moins,  vont  tomber  sous  ses  coups 

Les  plus  beaux  corps  du  monde  et  les  creurs  les  plus  doux." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  advance  a  certain  charge  of 
unfairness  against  the  attitude  of  Barbier  in  this  matter 
also,  for  he  writes  as  though  England  were  alone  to 
blame  among  the  countries  of  Europe.  The  subject  is 
one  which  makes  it  undesirable  to  dwell  here  on  a  vigor- 
ous poem,  the  literary  merit  of  which  must  be  admitted. 
The  poet  cannot  but  have  been  aware  of  that  depravity 
of  manners  which  made  a  contemporary  of  his  own 
describe  Paris  as  "  la  Grande  Prostituee,"  nor,  in  general 
terms  at  least,  of  the  terrible  facts  which  were,  a  few 
months  later,  exposed  by  F.  A.  Beraud  in  a  too-famous 
work.  But  Barbier  might  have  replied  that  two  blacks 
do  not  make  a  white,  and  what  seems  to  have  shocked 
him  particularly  in  London  was  the  total  apathy  of  the 
police  and  the  deadly  prudery  of  the  public.  "  Malheur," 
he  cries,  "en  ce  pays  aux  pauvres  Madeleines,"  and  he 
thunders  forth  his  denunciation  of  a  great  city  which 
calls  itself  Christian,  and  in  which  not  a  heart  is  found 
with  courage  enough  to  take  pity  on  the  sorrows  of  the 
fallen  or  a  hand  to  dry  their  tears. 

It  would  seem  that  Barbier  visited  Ireland,  and  a 
set  of  charming  plaintive  verses,  very  different  from 
the  usual  form  of  Lazare,  are  dedicated  to  "  Le 
Belles  Collines  d'Irlande."  He  has  witnessed  the 
embarcation  of  a  shipload  of  "  Exiles  of  Erin,"  and  his 


A   French  Satirist  in  England      191 

heart  bled  at  the  sight  of  a  mass  of  human  beings, 
driven  on  board  like  sheep,  haggard  with  famine,  and 
clothed  solely  in  rags.  He  is  almost  needlessly  unkind 
about  these  rags,  for  he  calls  them  "  les  haillons  troues 
de  la  riche  Angleterre."  He  is  somewhat  lacking  in 
humour,  as  satirists  are  apt  to  be,  for  he  anticipates  the 
sarcasm  of  the  statesman  who  said  that  the  only  real 
remedy  for  the  woes  of  Ireland  would  be  to  tow  her 
out  into  the  Atlantic  and  sink  her  for  twenty-four 
hours.  Barbier  seriously  suggests  that  if  the  abominable 
tyranny  of  England  weighs  much  longer  upon  the  green 
Erin  she  "  s'en  irait  sous  les  ondes."  It  is  a  delightful 
picture  reminiscent  of  Alice  s  Adventures,  of  the  gaunt 
Britannia,  with  her  long  teeth,  leaning  a  sharp  elbow 
so  heavily  upon  Ireland  as  to  press  her  slowly  down 
under  the  water.  But  in  a  book  where  almost  everything 
is  so  ugly  the  last  stanza  of  "  Les  Belles  Collines  "  is 
refreshing — 

"  Mais  heureux  les  troupeaux  qui  paissent,  vagabonds, 

Les  patures  de  trefle  en  nos  fraiches  vallees  ! 
Heureux  les  chers  oiseaux  qui  chantent  leurs  chansons 

Dans  les  bois  frissonnants  ou  passent  leurs  voices  ! 
Oh  !   les  vents  sont  bien  doux  dans  nos  pres  murmurants, 

Et  les  meules  de  foin  ont  des  odeurs  divines; 
L'oseille  et  le  cresson  garnissent  les  courants 

De  tous  vos  clairs  ruisseaux,  6  mes  belles  collines  !  " 

This  is  a  charming  picture,  but  only  produced  as  a 
momentary  foil  to  the  hideousness  of  England. 

Whether  Barbier  was  at  this  time  well  acquainted 


192  Inter  Arma 


with  our  language  is  not  apparent,  but  he  was  certainly 
unfamiliar  with  our  current  literature.  In  a  long  and 
elaborate  ode,  entitled  "  La  Lyre  d'Airain,"  he  points 
out  that  whereas  wild  Italy,  and  Germany  the  flaxen, 
and  lyric  France  enjoy  the  possession  of  noble  poets, 
"  la  tenebreuse  Angle terre  "  has  no  other  instrument 
than  a  brazen  lyre,  of  which  the  screaming  looms  of 
her  factories  serve  as  strings.  Polyhymnia,  mother  of 
harmony,  smiles  encouragingly  on  the  other  nations, 
but  has  only  rough  words  for  England.  The  poet, 
therefore,  calls  upon  the  sons  of  the  other  nations  to 
listen  to  the  voice  of  this  angry  Muse,  to  these  notes 
struck  on  the  strings  o^  brass.  They  will  distinguish 
human  cries  from  myriads  of  slaves  toiling  in  darkness 
and  pain  to  fill  the  coffers  of  English  pride.  The  picture 
he  gives  of  millions  of  workers  lifting  impotent  voices 
of  despair  to  heaven  is  overwhelming.  And  the  employer 
of  labour  is  depicted  as  uniformly  tyrannical,  pitiless, 
and  egotistical,  protected  by  infamous  laws,  which 
support  him  in  his  worst  excesses.  There  is  not  a  chink 
of  light  in  this  dark  picture. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  satire  of  the  French  poet  is 
extravagant  and  unjust.  But  when  he  insists  upon 
the  wretchedness  of  the  dwellings  of  the  English  poor, 
on  their  miserable  rates  of  wages,  on  the  overcrowding, 
above  all,  on  the  cruel  modes  of  employing  children, 
we  feel  that  he  had  much  reason  to  be  angry.  What  no 
one  would  guess  from  his  ferocious  stanzas  is  that  the 
Factory  Act  of  1833  and  the  Poor  Law  of  1834 


A   French   Satirist  in  England      193 

already  begun  to  cause  an  improvement  in  social 
conditions.  But  possibly  this  was  still  mainly  rural 
and  hardly  to  be  observed  in  the  great  towns.  What, 
however,  amounts  almost  to  prevision  on  Barbier's 
part  are  the  lamentations  which  he  puts  into  the  mouths 
of  the  children.  These  are  often  so  exactly  identical 
with  those  enshrined  in  Mrs.  Browning's  "  Cry  of  the 
Children  "  as  to  raise  a  question  whether  a  stray  copy 
of  Lazera  may  not  have  come  into  her  hands.  Her 
poem  was  written  in  1843  and  in  direct  reference  to 
the  Report  of  the  Commission  of  1842,  but  already  in 
1836  the  French  poet  makes  the  children,  dizzy  with 
driving  the  wheels  of  iron  all  day  long,  yearn  for  a  place 
where 

"  nos  poitrines 

Ne  se  briseraient  pas  sur  de  froides  machines, 
Et,  la  nuit  nous  laissant  respirer  ses  pavots, 
Nous  dormirons  enfin  comme  les  animaux." 

("  If  we  cared  for  any  meadows  it  was  only  to  lie 
down  in  them  and  sleep.") 

But  a  still  more  terrible  picture  of  English  manners 
is  supplied  by  the  long  poem  entitled  "  La  Tamise." 
Barbier  must  have  been  feeling  exceedingly  unwell 
when  he  sat  down  to  compose  this  piece.  He  is  not 
alone  among  poets,  and  especially  foreign  poets,  in 
considering  the  Thames  a  very  sinister  phenomenon. 
But  he  outdoes  the  others;  he  writes  as  if  the  unfor- 
tunate river  were  Acheron  and  Phlegethon  rolled  into 
o 


194  Inter  Arma 


one.  It  forms  a  natural  and  almost  an  irresistible 
asylum  for  suicides;  to  walk  along  its  black  banks,  to 
be  pierced  by  its  icy  fog,  is  to  despair  of  life  itself. 
England  is  hell — 

"  Ah  !    si  vous  connaissiez  cette  ile, 
Vous  sauriez  quel  est  cet  enfer  " ; 

it  is  a  country  where  charity  and  pity  are  unknown; 
"  ou  Ton  ne  prete  a  la  misere  Toreille  non  plus  que 
la  main."  London  rises  along  the  Thames,  menacing, 
black,  a  sooty  wall  of  bronze.  The  poet  is  chilled  to 
the  heart  by  the  muddy  streets,  the  filthy  smells,  the 
icy  rain.  "  Oh  !  "  he  cries,  "  la  vie  est  affreuse  a 
trainer  dans  ce  lieu  fatal !  "  He  notes  in  high  and  low 
alike  a  total  absence  of  sympathy  for  poverty  or  sorrow, 
and  ever  the  horrible  river  glides  by,  carrying  its 
suicides  and  its  dead  dogs  and  its  nameless  offal  down 
to  a  squalid  sea. 

It  is  almost  to  be  supposed  that  Barbier  was  in  com- 
munication with  some  disaffected  Englishman,  who 
pointed  out  to  him  the  national  abuses  which  most 
loudly  called  for  satire.  Admittedly,  in  the  'thirties, 
the  treatment  of  our  army  was  the  worst  in  our  history ; 
as  has  been  said,  the  common  soldier  "  dragged  out  his 
existence  under  conditions  which  to  us  seem  simply 
revolting."  But  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  a  young 
Frenchman,  like  Barbier,  a  mere  visitor  to  our  shores, 
came  to  know  so  much  about  it.  The  subject  of  "  Le 
Fouet  "  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  flogging  in  the 


A   French   Satirist  in  England      195 

army,  a  theme  which,  we  may  confidently  hope,  has 
inspired  no  other  poet  before  or  since.  The  English 
practice  of  whipping  soldiers  for  every  trifling  delin- 
quency excites  in  the  French  poet's  bosom  the  most 
vehement  indignation.  He  gives  a  description  of  the 
punishment  so  hideously  vivid  that  we  can  hardly 
doubt  that  he  was  present  at  an  execution  of  the  kind. 
Such  monstrosities,  he  avers,  could  take  place  only 
within  the  base  and  cruel  "  Albion,  cceur  de  roche," 
and  he  puts  into  the  mouths  of  the  miserable  soldiers 
a  lyric  cry  of  despair  and  appeal.  Through  his  verse, 
these  wretched  men  call  upon  England  to  desist  from 
her  cruelties,  and  they  declare  that — 

"Ses  murailles  de  chair,  ses  soldats  valeureux, 
Sont  traites  par  ses  mains  comme  on  traite  les  boeufs." 

The  curious  unfairness  of  Barbier  must  from  the 
very  first  have  alienated  sympathy  from  his  diatribes. 
Was  it  not  M.  de  Thiard  who  said  that  he  was  very 
fond  of  the  pastorals  of  M.  de  Florian,  but  that  they 
would  be  improved  by  a  wolf  here  and  there?  Con- 
versely, we  may  say  that  Barbier's  fuscous  paintings 
of  English  society  would  be  improved  by  a  gleam  of 
light  here  and  there.  In  the  stern  poem  called  "  Les 
Mineurs  de  Newcastle  "  he  makes  many  just  reflections 
on  the  terrible  dangers  and  the  cruel  monotony  of 
subterranean  industry,  but  he  writes  exactly  as  though 
there  were  no  mines — as,  in  a  previous  poem,  no  looms — 
in  any  other  part  of  the  world  but  in  this  detest- 


196  Inter  Arma 


able    and  deplorable  Albion.     Sir    Humphrey  Davy's 
invention,  it  is  true,  is  mentioned  as — 

"  la  lampe  salutaire 
Qu'un  ami  des  humains  fit  pour  le  noir  mineur." 

It  is  probable  that  Barbier  did  not  exaggerate  in  the 
least  the  terrible  conditions  under  which  miners  of 
both  sexes  and  every  age  were  working  when  he  visited 
England.  There  was  practically  no  legislation  to  regu- 
late the  slavery,  for  it  was  nothing  less,  under  which 
the  miners  in  the  north  of  England  languished.  Nor 
was  the  apathy  of  public  opinion  shaken  until  Lord 
Ashley's  Bill  of  1842,  following  upon  a  Royal  Commission 
earlier  in  the  same  year,  awakened  the  conscience  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  It  is,  therefore,  somewhat 
extraordinary  to  find  a  French  poet,  so  early  as  1836, 
putting  these  words  into  the  mouths  of  the  miners  of 
Newcastle — 

"  O  Dieu  !   Dieu  tout-puissant !   pour  les  plus  justes  causes 
Nous  ne  demandons  pas  le  tumulte  des  choses, 

Et  le  renversement  de  1'ordre  d'ici-bas ;  .  .  . 
Ce  dont  nous  te  prions,  enfants  de  la  misere, 
C'est  d'amollir  le  coeur  des  puissants  de  la  terre, 

Et  d'en  faire  pour  nous  un  plus  solide  appui  ; 
C'est  de  leur  rappeler  sans  cesse,  par  exemple, 
Qu'en  laissant  deperir  les  fondements  du  temple, 

Le  monument  s'ecroule  et  tout  tombe  avec  lui." 

Somewhere  in  London,  perhaps  at  the  East  India 
House,  Barbier  found  a  sinister  toy  which  had  been 


A  French  Satirist  in   England      197 

constructed  for  the  private  pleasure  of  Tippoo  Sahib. 
It  represented  a  life-sized  manikin  carefully  dressed  in 
the  uniform  of  an  English  soldier,  and  a  mechanical 
tiger,  which,  being  wound  up,  seized  the  trooper  in  its 
claws  and  tore  him,  while  the  instrument  gave  forth 
noises  which  were  supposed  to  be  the  dying  shrieks  of 
the  Englishman.  This  playful  joujou  d'un  Sultan  was 
one  of  the  objects  in  London  which  pleased  the  French 
poet  most;  he  describes  it  with  extreme  gusto.  His 
own  sympathies,  of  course,  are  entirely  with  Tippoo 
and  with  the  tiger,  and  not  at  all  with  "  ces  Clives,  ces 
Hastings  de  sinistre  memoire."  His  anger  against 
England  is  nowhere  more  extravagant  than  in  relation 
to  India,  where  he  charges  us  with  causing  famines 
on  purpose.  His  temper  of  mind  is  revealed  by  the 
confession  that  when  some  great  London  lady  was 
giving  a  rout,  her  windows  a  blaze  of  light,  Barbier 
stood  on  the  pavement,  cursing  the  guests  as  they 
entered. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  a  poet  of  revolution, 
in  such  a  very  bad  temper,  should  visit  England  without 
expatiating  on  the  exclusion  of  Byron  from  the  national 
Valhalla.  Although  the  decision  of  the  Dean  was  a 
dozen  years  old,  the  fame  of  if  still  vibrated  throughout 
Europe.  This  was,  probably,  the  most  notorious  act 
of  England,  in  continental  opinion,  since  Waterloo. 
Its  causes  were  not  comprehended,  and  it  was  set 
down  to  unadulterated  hypocrisy  and  cant.  The 
poem  entitled  "  Westminster "  is  one  of  the  longest 


198  Inter  Arma 


and  the  most  vigorous  in  Barbier's  volume.  The 
opening  stanzas  of  it  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  Byron 
himself,  who  exclaims  that  the  odious  attacks  of  the 
British  public — 

"  rendirent  mon  coeur  plus  noir  et  plus  amer 
Que  le  fenouil  sauvage  arrache  par  la  mer, 
Et  le  flot  ecumeux  que  la  sombre  nature 
Autour  de  1'Angleterre  a  roule  pour  ceinture." 

The  French  poet,  whose  voice  is  not  to  be  distinguished 
from  that  of  Byron,  replies  to  the  angry  ghost  in  accents 
not  less  furious.  The  Abbey,  noble  as  it  is,  fills  him 
with  rage,  and  its  sepulchral  beauties  rouse  in  him  a 
passion  of  rebellion.  He  declares  that  none  are  any 
longer  buried  there  but  the  pompous  and  their  slaves. 
The  phantoms  of  the  free  flap  in  vain  for  entrance 
against  the  high,  dim  windows  of  the  Minster;  and 
their  funereal  clamours,  so  haughtily  disdained  by  the 
arrogant  snobbishness  of  England,  rouse  the  rest  of 
the  universe  to  indignation. 

Another  long  poem,  "  Les  Hustings,"  is  a  sort  of 
eclogue,  in  which  "  Menace "  and  "  Corruption " 
address  and  answer  one  another  on  the  electoral  abuses 
of  England.  It  is  not  a  little  curious  that  Dickens 
should  have  been  describing  the  contest  of  Slumkey 
and  Fizkin  for  the  parliamentary  representation  of  the 
borough  of  Eatanswill  at  the  very  moment  when  Auguste 
Barbier  was  treating  the  same  subject  from  the  gravest 
point  of  view  possible.  The  French  poet  might  really 


A   French   Satirist  in  England      199 

have  been  the  veritable  Count  Smorltork  whom  Mr. 
Pickwick  found  taking  notes  at  Mrs.  Leo  Hunter's 
garden-party.  In  a  certain  sense,  although  Dickens 
is  so  sparkling  and  Barbier  so  gloomy,  these  accounts 
of  our  electoral  practices  in  1836  do  closely  confirm  one 
another.  The  French  poet  describes  the  total  absence 
of  virtuous  independence  in  the  electorate.  Money 
pours  in  in  floods,  but  the  elector  will  be  turned  out  of 
his  house  if  he  refuses  to  vote  as  his  landlord  wishes. 
It  has  been  so  in  England  for  five  hundred  years,  and 
all  the  electorate,  Radicals  and  Tories,  Papists  and 
Protestants,  are  equally  infamous  and  venal.  The 
closing  stanzas  are  worth  quoting.  Corruption  cries — 

"  O  Menace,  6  ma  soeur,  a  grands  pas  avan9ons  : 
Deja  la  foule  ardente,  au  bruit  de  la  fanfare, 

Roule  autour  des  hustings  en  epais  tourbillons  : 
Pour  emporter  d'assaut  le  scrutin  qu'on  prepare, 

Fais  jaillir  la  terreur  du  fond  de  tes  poumons." 

To  which  Menace  replies — 

"  Et  toi,  Corruption  !    repands  1'or  a  main  pleine, 
Verse  le  flot  impur  sur  rimmense  troupeau  : 

Qu'il  envahisse  tout,  les  hustings  et  1'arene, 
Et  que  la  Liberte,  presente  a  ce  tableau, 

Voile  son  front  divin  de  sa  toge  romaine." 

These  sinister  verses  might  have  been  printed  as  an 
epigraph  to  Chapter  XIII  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  celebrated 
Memoirs. 

It  will  be  observed  that  international  politics  take 
little  or   no  part   in    the   varied   contents   of  Lazare. 


200  Inter  Arma 


There  is,  however,  a  slight  exception  to  this  in  the  ode 
called  "  Le  Pilote,"  on  the  form  of  which,  by  the  way, 
the  influence  of  Andre  Chenier  is  strongly  felt.  The 
Pilot  is  William  Pitt,  that  "  homme  au  large  et  froid 
cerveau,"  who,  although  he  had  been  dead  for  thirty 
years,  still  cries  "  Carnage  !  "  and  sets  loose  the  dogs  of 
war  on  Europe.  That  he  opposed  France  by  a  coalition 
of  nations  is  not  forgotten,  and  he  is  reproached  for 
imposing  on  his  own  country  "  I'impot  et  ses  enormes 
poids"  for  the  sake  of  keeping  up  this  menace,  and  of 
tearing  from  the  burning  kisses  of  France  the  forehead 
of  her  sister  England — 

"  O  William  Pitt,  6  nocher  souverain  ! 

O  pilote  a  la  forte  tete  ! 
II  est  bien  vrai  que  ton  cornet  d'airain 

Domina  toujours  la  tempete; 
Qu'inebranlable  et  ferme  au  gouvernail 

Comme  un  Neptune  tu  sus  faire, 
Devant  ta  voix  tomber  le  sourd  travail 

De  la  grande  onde  populaire." 

Lord  Melbourne  is  a  transient  phantom  whom  Barbier 
disdains  to  name. 

If  we  make  due  allowance  for  a  perverse  deter- 
mination on  the  part  of  Barbier  to  see  nothing  English 
in  a  roseate  light,  the  exactitude  and  the  width  of  his 
observations  are  certainly  very  remarkable.  We  have 
compared  him  with  his  fictitious  contemporary,  Count 
Smorltork,  but  he  is  distinguished  from  that  credulous 
visitor  by  his  accuracy.  Barbier's  mistakes  are  all 


A    French  Satirist  in  England      201 

errors  of  omission,  and  have  the  air  of  being  wilful.  He 
is  singularly  exempt  from  those  blunders  to  which  a 
foreigner,  and  in  particular  an  unfriendly  foreigner, 
is  liable  in  his  animadversions  of  another  country.  So 
exact  is  he,  even  in  his  malignity,  that  we  find  ourselves 
wondering  by  what  means  he  gathered  together  facts 
which  he  certainly  did  not  find  in  the  British  newspapers 
of  that  day.  It  is  the  gift  of  a  satirist  to  detect  our 
faults  when  we  have  not  noticed  them  ourselves.  From 
this  point  of  view  no  poem  in  Lazare  is  more  clairvoy- 
ant than  that  which  is  dedicated  to  Shakespeare.  Here 
he  hits  upon  a  national  error  which  no  contemporary 
observed.  During  the  reign  of  William  IV  the  neglect 
of  the  study  of  Shakespeare,  whether  on  the  boards  or 
in  the  library,  reached  a  lower  point  than  it  had  known 
for  a  century  and  a  half.  No  important  edition,  no 
celebrated  performance,  no  weighty  commentary  on 
the  plays,  belong  to  that  reign,  during  which  it  was  the 
newly-awakened  zeal  of  foreign  scholarship  which  kept 
the  memory  of  the  poet  alive  in  Europe. 

Barbier  declares  that  (in  1836)  Shakespeare  is  wholly 
forgotten  in  Great  Britain.  His  temples  are  deserted, 
his  admirers  are  silent.  Albion  has  lost  all  taste  for 
his  divine  symbols.  A  superficial  observer,  looking  at 
the  English  theatres,  at  English  books  and  newspapers, 
might  well  be  excused  for  believing  that  Shakespeare's 
very  name  is  about  to  be  swallowed  up  in  eternal 
oblivion.  No  one  acts  him,  no  one  praises  him,  no 
one  cares  about  his  memory.  (This,  if  we  look  into  the 


202  Inter  Arma 


dates,  is  true  enough ;  it  was  not  until  five  or  six  years 
later,  in  the  'forties,  that  the  personal  revival  of  Shake- 
speare began.)  But  the  French  poet  refuses  to  be  cast 
down,  and  he  breaks  into  a  really  eloquent  tribute  to 
the  poet  of  Stratford — a  tribute  which  seems  to  have 
escaped  the  notice  of  all  those  who  compile  Shake- 
spearian anthologies.  No  quotation  from  Lazare 
could  give  a  more  favourable  impression  of  Barbier's 
poetical  genius  than  the  passage  which  closes  in  these 
generous  stanzas — 

"  O  toi  qui  fus  1'enfant  de  la  grande  nature, 
Robuste  nourrisson  dans  ses  deux  bras  porte; 
Toi  qui,  mordant  le  bout  de  sa  mamelle  pure, 
D'une  levre  puissante  y  bus  la  verite  ; 

Tout  ce  que  ta  pensee  a  touche  de  son  aile, 
Tout  ce  que  ton  regard  a  fait  naitre  ici-bas, 
Tout  ce  qu'il  a  pare  d'une  forme  nouvelle 
Croitra  dans  1'avenir  sans  crainte  du  trepas. 

Shakespeare  !    vainement  sous  les  voutes  supremes 
Passe  le  vil  troupeau  des  mortels  inconstants, 
Comme  du  sable,  en  vain  sur  rabime  des  temps 
L'un  par  1'autre  ecrases  s'entassent  les  systemes; 

Ton  genie  est  pareil  au  soleil  radieux 
Qui,  tou jours  immobile  au  haut  de  1'empyree, 
Verse  tranquillement  sa  lumiere  sacree 
Sur  la  folle  rumeur  des  flots  tumultueux." 

This  recalls  the  "  Others  abide  our  Question  "  of  Matthew 
Arnold,  but  preceded  it  by  at  least  a  dozen  years. 

Although  Barbier,  as  we  have  indicated,  was  re- 
markably well  informed  about  the  exterior  of  English 
life,  he  would  not  have  been  a  Frenchman  of  his  time 


A   French  Satirist  in  England      203 

if  he  had  escaped  the  tradition  of  the  "  spleen."  He  is 
superior  to  the  common  legends  of  long  teeth,  wife- 
selling,  and  raw  beef,  but  he  succumbs  to  the  theory 
of  a  mysterious  wasting  disease  peculiar  to  the  British 
Islands.  The  attribution  of  this  malady — "  the  mind's 
wrong  bias,"  as  its  laureate  had  called  it — to  in- 
habitants of  this  realm  had  long  been  admitted  by  the 
eighteenth  century,  but  hardly  to  the  exclusion  of  other 
claimants.  I  have  not  discovered  an  earlier  source 
of  the  legend  than  Voltaire,  who  perhaps  introduced 
the  word,  as  well  as  the  idea,  into  France  from  England, 
and  who  claimed  the  spleen  as  our  national  disease. 
Barbier,  in  a  poem  of  great  merit,  describes  it  as  a  kind 
of  mortal  ennui,  "  prince  des  scorpions,"  scourge  of  our 
nation.  He  tells  the  inhabitants  of  this  island  that 
notwithstanding  her  boxers,  her  jockeys  and  her  foxes, 
England  is  not  really  entertained  by  anything,  and  that 
the  spleen,  with  nine-fold  lash,  is  whipping  them  all, 
its  citizens,  to  suicide.  He  makes  a  curious  reference 
to  the  running  of  railways,  which  is  early  indeed  when 
we  reflect  that  the  Great  Western  Bill  had  only  just 
overcome  the  resistance  of  Eton  and  Oxford,  and  passed 
into  law;  he  says  that  England  has  taken  to  running 
railway-trains  in  order  to  rouse  her  spirits,  but  they 
will  have  no  other  result  than  to  hurry  Englishmen 
faster  down  to  hell.  He  regards  the  recent  invention 
of  the  steamer  with  a  no  less  jaundiced  eye. 

In  another  poem,  after  charging  the  English  with  a 
gross  indifference  to  the  beauties  of  nature,  and  with 
being  ready  to  destroy  all  the  amenities  of  landscape 


204  Inter  Arma 


for  the  sake  of  making  a  few  pounds,  he  hits  on  one  of 
his  violent  images  and  presents  to  us  the  genius  of 
machinery  as  a  giant  hippopotamus,  "  insensible  animal," 
trampling  and  rolling  upon  the  glory  of  the  earth.  This 
final  poem,  "  La  Nature,"  ends,  however,  with  a  passage 
of  real  beauty,  where  the  poet  foresees  a  radiant  future 
for  the  unhappy  Albion,  when  its  present  possessors 
have  disappeared  (mown  down,  perhaps,  by  "  le  spleen  ") 
and  Britain  rejoices  at  last  in  the  protection  of  those 
divine  presences,  the  Eagle  and  Liberty.  An  Epilogue 
to  Lazare  tells  the  reader  that  Barbier  has  polished 
these  rhymes  as  a  mirror  in  which  the  Mother  of  Sorrows 
may  see  her  face  reflected.  His  object  has  been  to 
awaken  terror  and  pity  in  the  heart  of  Europe,  and  so 
he  closes  his  strange  book,  with  a  sort  of  Ronsard-like 
hymn,  half  charming  and  half  ridiculous. 

The  complete  oblivion  which  immediately  fell  upon 
this  volume  can  be  accounted  for  in  several  ways. 
Reaction  against  the  exaggerated  fame  of  the  author 
of  the  lambes  led  at  that  moment  to  a  no  less  exces- 
sive depreciation,  so  that,  merely  as  poetry,  Barbier's 
work,  failed  to  awaken  interest.  As  an  attack  on  English 
manners  and  the  ruling  class  in  Great  Britain,  the  change 
in  Parisian  feeling  caused  by  the  death  of  William  IV 
and  the  interesting  accession  of  the  girlish  Victoria 
made  the  diatribes  which  Lazare  contained  tactless 
and  ill  timed.  Such  satire  was  a  kind  of  bad  manners. 
It  was  therefore  neglected  in  Paris,  and  the  poet  fell 
into  great  obscurity.  In  England,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  almost  certain  that  the  volume  never  came  under 


A  French  Satirist  in  England      205 

the  notice  of  any  critic,  or,  perhaps,  of  any  reader. 
Now,  after  nearly  eighty  years,  when  England  and 
France  understand  one  another  so  perfectly,  it  may 
be  presented  as  a  whimsical  curiosity  of  literature 
which  can  do  nothing  but  excite  a  smile  on  either  side 
of  the  Channel. 


THE   NEUTRALITY   OF 
SWEDEN 


THE    NEUTRALITY   OF 
SWEDEN 

APART  from  the  actual  belligerents,  there  was  no 
country  of  Europe  which  was  more  painfully  startled 
by  the  outbreak  of  this  war  than  Sweden.  The 
first  instinctive  impulse  of  the  Swedes  was  to  protest 
in  anger  against  so  uncalled-for  an  interruption  of  their 
comfort.  A  prominent  Swedish  publicist  exclaimed, 
"  The  lightning  has  struck  the  powder-barrel  which 
all  the  nations  have  been  so  busy  filling,  and  the  whole 
world  is  one  flame."  For  reasons  which  will  presently 
be  defined,  the  susceptibilities  of  Sweden,  after  several 
years  of  nervous  strain,  had  calmed  down,  and  the 
country  was  looking  forward  to  tranquillity  at  home 
and  abroad.  After  some  delicate  pilotage,  the  ship 
of  Swedish  state  had  seemed  to  be  in  harbour  at  last, 
when  suddenly,  on  every  side  of  her,  broke  out  the 
yapping  of  guns.  Her  government  did  not  hesitate  for 
a  moment.  Whatever  might  eventually  be  the  necessary 
action,  Sweden's  first  instinctive  duty  was  to  affirm  her 
old  policy  of  neutrality,  the  strictest  neutrality  main- 
tained towards  all  the  belligerents  in  exact  equality. 
No  offers — if  such  were  made — could  tempt  her  to  for- 
sake the  position  she  had  taken  up,  nor  persuade  her 
p  209 


210  Inter  Arma 


to  join  one  side  or  the  other.  First  of  all,  laying  aside 
all  local  jealousies,  Sweden  took  the  outstretched  hand 
of  Norway,  and  the  two  countries  registered  a  mutual 
vow  under  no  circumstances  to  let  the  great  war  drive 
either  of  them  into  acts  hostile  to  the  other. 

To  understand  the  position  we  must  realise  the  political 
conditions  of  Sweden  in  August,  1914.  The  first  Liberal 
government  of  modern  Swedish  history  was  formed  by 
Hr.  Karl  Staaff  in  1905.  This  was  shortlived  and  was 
succeeded  by  a  new  Conservative  era,  which  lasted  until 
1911,  when  Hr.  Staaff  came  into  power  again.  His 
resignation  in  February  1914  was  a  consequence  of  the 
constitutional  crisis  arising  out  of  the  defence  question. 
Then  a  Conservative  statesman — as  Conservatives  count 
in  Sweden — succeeded  in  forming  a  cabinet.  This  was 
Hr.  Hammarskjold,  a  politician  of  weight  and  honour, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  living  experts  on  International 
Law.  He  was  lucky  enough  to  secure,  as  his  Foreign 
Minister,  Hr.  Knut  Wallenberg,  to  whom  is  due  the  main 
direction  of  Swedish  external  politics  since  the  war 
broke  out.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Hr.  Wallen- 
berg is  the  most  commanding  figure  in  Sweden  to-day, 
and  it  is  mainly  in  consequence  of  his  firmness  and 
consistency  that  no  mistakes  of  importance  have  been 
made  in  the  conduct  of  affairs.  He  rules  the  storm 
with  a  strong  hand,  and  he  has  never,  from  the  first 
moment,  wavered  in  his  determination  to  preserve  intact 
the  neutrality  of  his  country.  Hr.  Wallenberg  is  a 
patriot  of  the  purest  water,  and  the  welfare,  the  safety, 
and  the  independence  of  Sweden  have  been  his  unique 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         211 

care.  That  he  held  out  a  hand  to  Denmark  at  an  early 
stage  is  a  matter  of  rumour  and  of  probability;  what 
is  certain  is  that  he  arranged  the  momentous  meeting 
of  the  three  Scandinavian  kings  at  Malmo. 

In  its  determination  to  maintain  a  position  severely 
aloof,  the  government  of  which  Hr.  Hammarskjold 
is  the  head  was  faced  by  not  a  few  difficulties  which 
required  patience  and  tact  to  overcome.  It  is  useless 
to  deny  that  there  existed  a  clique,  almost  a  party,  in 
Stockholm,  whose  sympathies  were  so  strongly  with 
Germany  at  the  very  outset  as  to  create  an  element  of 
anxiety  for  the  Swedish  government.  What  this  clique 
consisted  of,  and  why  it  possessed  a  considerable  import- 
ance, may  presently  be  made  clear.  For  the  moment, 
it  is  enough  to  say  that  its  action  was  based  upon  the 
old  dread  of  Russian  aggression,  which  has  been  for  a 
century  past  the  bugbear  of  Sweden.  The  government 
never  wavered,  but  it  is  vain  to  deny  that  a  certain 
disquietude  reigned  as  to  what  would  be  the  conse- 
quences to  Sweden  if  the  Allies  were  victorious  and 
Germany  were  crushed.  Would  any  power  on  earth,  it 
was  anxiously  asked,  be  able  to  stem  the  advance  of 
Russia  on  her  way  to  the  high  seas  ? 

In  their  policy  of  neutrality,  the  Swedish  ministers 
were  supported  by  their  natural  opponents,  the  Liberals 
and  the  Social-Democrats.  Working-class  sentiment, 
from  the  first,  has  been  steadily  adverse  to  any  partici- 
pation in  the  fighting.  But  there  is  a  military  element 
in  the  country  which,  although  not  numerically  strong, 
is  able  to  make  itself  loudly  heard.  The  psychology 


212  Inter  Arma 


of  a  professional  war-class  is  simple  enough.  Those 
who  have  been  trained  to  warfare  wish  to  fight,  and 
nothing  can  be  more  natural  than  that  they  should. 
They  hold  fighting  to  be  in  itself  a  good  thing,  and  they 
see  no  reason  why  diplomacy  and  legislation  should 
prevent  it  when  the  cause  is  just.  They  resent  the 
interference  of  politicians ;  silent  leges  inter  arma,  they 
say,  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  Cicero.  The  soldier  caste 
in  Sweden  was  tired  of  being  inactive,  and  it  looked 
upon  Germany  as  the  typical  military  country.  Swedish 
officers  had  long  been  flattered  and  cajoled  in  Prussian 
military  circles,  and  the  society  in  which  they  shone  at 
home  was  openly  pro-German. 

At  the  first  moment  of  the  crisis,  nothing  could  have 
been  more  adroit  than  the  conduct  of  Germany,  or  have 
given  clearer  evidence  of  her  wide  scheme  of  prepared- 
ness. Nothing  had  been  left  to  chance ;  all  was  arranged 
beforehand  on  a  perfect  plan.  Germany  knew  that  a 
little  seed  of  flame,  a  spark  of  anti-neutral  prejudice,  lay 
at  the  heart  of  the  military  and  aristocratic  society  of 
her  northern  neighbour.  That  Germany  did  everything . 
she  possibly  could  to  fan  this  flame  into  a  big  fire  is  a 
well-known  fact,  and  the  means  she  took  are  patent. 
She  had  formed  close  and  long-standing  connexions 
with  the  Swedish  press,  connexions  that  were  no  doubt 
of  an  honourable  nature,  but  much  more  intimate  than 
any  which  England  had  dreamed  of.  German  news- 
papers reached  Sweden  as  abundantly  and  regularly 
as  usual,  and  the  more  or  less  official  German  news 
agencies  poured  in  a  constant  flow  of  highly  coloured 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         213 

information.  Sweden  was  immediately  overrun  with 
emissaries  of  all  sorts  and  conditions,  from  the  professor, 
with  his  Nobel  Prize  diploma  as  his  passport,  to  the 
Social-Democratic  deputy  waving  the  red  rag  of  "  Tsar- 
dom  is  the  danger  of  European  democracy  "  in  front  of 
his  Swedish  Genossen.  Tons  of  German  pamphlets 
were  dumped  in  Sweden ;  the  German  White  Book  was 
immediately  ready  in  a  Swedish  translation ;  while  the 
thousand  and  one  things  which  Germany  considered 
necessary  to  impress  Sweden,  not  with  the  frightfulness 
but  with  the  right  fulness  of  the  German  cause,  were 
pulled  out  from  their  pigeon-holes  in  Wilhelms-strasse, 
and  were  hurried  to  their  Swedish  destination  under  the 
charge  of  the  egregious  Herr  von  Kuhlmann. 

Thus  Germany  acted,  and  what  did  the  Allies  do  to 
counteract  her  blow  ?  What,  in  particular,  did  England 
do?  It  is  distressing  to  our  national  vanity  to  be 
obliged  to  answer — Worse  than  nothing  !  Much  excuse 
may  be  made  for  the  disturbance  in  August  1914  of  the 
ordinary  arrangements  for  the  transmission  of  news 
by  telegraph.  There  was  a  universal  entanglement 
which  could  but  result  in  temporary  dislocation.  But 
it  is  only  proper  to  add  that  the  inexperience  and  the 
want  of  imagination  of  the  new  official  authorities 
added  immensely  and  needlessly  to  the  trouble.  Private 
newspaper  correspondents  attached  to  friendly  countries 
found  their  messages  delayed  until  it  was  no  longer 
worth  their  while  to  attempt  to  push  them  through. 
The  Censorship,  in  its  playful  infancy,  laid  its  little  hands 
on  almost  every  newspaper  message  sent  to  a  neutral 


214  Inter  Arma 


country,  and  tore  it  into  scraps.  For  instance — and 
this  was  an  act  of  officialdom  so  stupid  that  posterity 
will  hesitate  to  credit  it — the  verbatim  report  of  Sir 
Edward  Grey's  momentous  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  August  3,  a  document  which  the  British 
government  should  have  strained  every  nerve  to  get 
quickly  transmitted  to  every  country  of  the  world,  was 
held  up  by  the  military  censor  for  three  days  !  English 
newspapers  which,  by  an  amazing  arrangement,  were 
supplied  through  an  agent  at  Liege,  were  not  able  to 
reach  Sweden  until  the  war  had  been  proceeding  for 
three  full  weeks.  The  Belgian  agent's  office  and  his 
papers  were  blown  to  pieces  by  the  German's  siege 
guns.  Our  English  authorities  are  not  to  be  blamed 
for  this  ! 

Of  course,  things  righted  themselves  by  and  by,  but 
in  the  meantime  the  Germans  had  had  the  field  to  them- 
selves, and  they  certainly  had  not  wasted  their  oppor- 
tunity. Yet,  with  all  their  well-laid  plans,  with  all  their 
elaborate  preparations,  they  did  not  reap  any  rich  har- 
vest. Professor  Wilhelm  Ostwald,  the  famous  thermo- 
chemist,  was  sent  from  Berlin  on  an  "  absolutely  un- 
official" visit  to  tempt  Sweden  with  a  future  Baltic 
empire  in  which  Sweden  should  be  the  leading  state.  He 
was  bluntly  told  that  Sweden  did  not  want  Finland  back. 
When  further  asked  what  it  was  proposed  that  the  official 
language  of  this  future  empire  should  be,  he  indiscreetly 
replied,  "  German,  of  course."  He  then  hurriedly  re- 
turned to  Germany,  not  a  little  perturbed,  moreover, 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden          215 

that  his  Swedish  friends  should  have  been  so  far  wanting 
in  tact  as  to  raise  the  question  of  the  future  of  Slesvig. 

Albert  Siidekum,  the  Social-Democratic  deputy,  who 
preceded  Ostwald,  had  enjoyed,  if  possible,  still  less 
success  with  his  mission.  The  Swedish  Social-Demo- 
cratic party  has  the  good  fortune  to  possess  in  its  leader, 
Hr.  Hjalmar  Branting,  one  of  the  strongest  men  of  his 
opinions  in  the  whole  of  Europe.  Besides  being  one  of 
the  foremost  politicians  in  Sweden,  he  is  also  one  of 
her  most  eminent  journalists.  Without  hiding  his  tra- 
ditional fear  of  "  tsaristic  "  Russia,  he  has  shown  from 
the  beginning  of  the  war  a  most  decided  sympathy  for 
the  Allies.  The  lucidity  of  Branting's  intellect  made 
him  comprehend  the  essential  justice  of  the  cause  of 
the  Allies  long  before  their  case  was  presented  to  the 
neutral  countries  and  while  other  Swedish  editors  were 
still  undecided.  The  crime  against  Belgium  justified 
Hr.  Branting  in  the  eyes  of  his  own  country.  As  he 
says  in  his  weighty  contribution  to  King  Albert's 
Book:  "But  then  came  the  crime  against  inter- 
national law,  the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality.  For 
us,  who  intend  to  defend  to  the  very  utmost  our 
neutrality,  it  was  like  a  thrust  directed  against  our 
own  heart."  In  spite  of  these  views,  Hr.  Branting 
maintained  an  attitude  of  strict  impartiality,  and 
when  "  comrade  "  Siidekum  arrived  to  plead  the  justice 
of  Germany's  cause,  Branting  allowed  him  to  address 
the  party  and  consented  to  publish  his  arguments  in 
the  Social-Demokraten,  the  leading  party-organ.  But 


216  Inter  Arma 


he  himself  replied  so  effectively  to  the  German  missionary, 
and  pulled  all  his  argument  so  ruthlessly  to  pieces,  that 
Sudekum  went  back  crestfallen  to  Germany  without 
having  fulfilled  the  aim  of  his  mission. 

Sweden  had  at  first  nothing  to  read  but  the  German 

pamphlets    and   the    German    newspapers.     But    after 

some  time  she  got  access  to  news  from  the  other  side 

as  well.     The  German  White  Book  was    followed    by 

the  English  Blue  Book,  the  French  Yellow  Book,  the 

Russian  Orange  Book,   and  the  Belgian   Grey  Book. 

Not  that  government  publications  in  all  the  colours  of 

the  rainbow  could  alter  Sweden's  decision  to  remain 

neutral,  but  she  had,  at  last,  an  opportunity  of  judging 

matters  on  the  evidence  of  the  opposing  parties.     The 

result  was  a  marked  change  in  the  general  tone  of  the 

Swedish  press,  and  Wolff's  Bureau  was  no  longer  looked 

upon  as  an  immaculate  purveyor  of  nothing  but  the 

truth.     The  largest  and  most  influential  of  the  journals 

of  Sweden,  Dagens  Nyheter,  a  paper  which  is  admirably 

conducted  and  which  boasts  of  a  daily  circulation  of 

over  90,000,  has    been    eminently  fair    to    the    Allies 

throughout;  it  has  given  all  the  news  from  London, 

Paris,  and  Petrograd  as  well  as  from  Berlin,  and  it  is 

impossible   to    detect    in    its    opinions    any    bias    for 

Germany.     At  the  other  extremity  of  journalism,  the 

Svenska  Dagbladet  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  an 

outspoken  defender  of  the  Prussian   cause,  but  even 

this  paper  has  never  advocated  a  participation  in  the 

struggle,  while  every  month  there  is  apparent  a  cooling 

in  its  zeal  for  Germanv. 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden          217 

The  blowing-up  of  Swedish  ships  by  German  mines 
instantly  lowered  the  temperature  of  the  pro-Germans, 
and  when  the  attacks  on  English  non-combatants  began 
Swedish  sympathy  was  still  further  alienated.  Such 
deeds  are  not  in  the  tradition  of  the  eminently  humane 
and  gracious  people  of  Sweden,  who  have  an  instinctive 
and  traditional  horror  of  kultur  of  this  sort.  After 
the  first  Norfolk  raids  the  Swedish  press  did  not  mince 
matters.  It  was  unanimous  in  disapproval,  and  Dagens 
Nyheler  plainly  told  its  German  friends  that  if  they 
persisted  in  the  murder  of  babies  Swedish  sympathy 
would  "  turn  away  in  disgust." 

On  the  other  hand,  Sweden  was  made  sore  by  our 
prohibition  of  the  export  of  iron  ore,  but  pacified  when 
we  rescinded  it.  Germany  also  gave  deep  offence  by 
putting  wood  on  her  prohibited  list,  and  this  embargo 
she  has  not  removed.  The  closure  of  the  North  Sea 
greatly  hampered  Swedish  trade,  and  produced  a  con- 
siderable exasperation  in  commercial  circles;  but  the 
blockade  of  February  1915  set  Swedish  opinion  still 
more  violently  against  Germany.  In  all  these  balancings 
of  natural  and  national  interest  there  is  no  real  element 
of  attack  upon  the  solid  principles  of  neutrality.  The 
aggressive  military  party  has  shown  itself  to  be  help- 
less, and  its  voice  is  heard  less  loudly.  The  majority  of 
Swedish  citizens  has  no  wish  that  Germany  should  pre- 
ponderate in  the  whole  world,  while  the  government, 
too  discreet  to  take  a  side,  continues  with  honesty  and 
adroitness  to  steer  the  ship  of  state  through  the  shoals 
pf  diplomatic  intrigue,  which  are  often  hardly  less 


2i 8  Inter  Arma 


dangerous  than  the  multitudinous  reefs  of  its  own 
intricate  coastline. 

For  many  years  Germany  has  done  everything  in  her 
power  not  only  to  foster  sympathetic  relations  with 
Sweden  and  Norway  but  also  to  develop  in  a  thousand 
ingenious  ways  material  and  intellectual  intercourse 
between  herself  and  them.  As  far  as  Norway  is  con- 
cerned, it  is  needless  to  do  more  than  remind  ourselves 
of  the  Kaiser's  annual  summer  trips  to  the  Norwegian 
fjords,  where  his  Hohenzollern,  in  its  white  shining 
armour,  became  a  phenomenon  as  unavoidable  as  the 
midnight  sun ;  his  lavish  contributions  to  the  restoration 
fund  of  Trondhjem  Cathedral,  the  Westminster  Abbey 
of  Norway;  his  instantaneous  and  dramatic  dispatch 
of  a  German  liner  as  a  relief  ship  with  foodstuffs  and 
other  necessaries  to  Aalesund  when  that  Norwegian 
coast-town  was  devastated  by  fire ;  not  to  speak  of  his 
slightly  less-appreciated  gift  to  Norway  of  a  hideous 
giant  statue  of  "  Frithiof  the  Viking." 

In  Sweden  the  Teutonic  methods  have  been  somewhat 
different,  and,  perhaps,  a  little  more  subtle.  The  Kaiser 
himself  has  not  been  so  much  in  evidence  there.  His 
visits  to  Sweden  have  been  limited  to  ordinary  state 
appearances,  such  as  are  prescribed  by  international 
etiquette.  The  apparition  of  the  phantom  hull  of  the 
Hohenzollern  in  Swedish  waters  has  not  been  entirely 
neglected,  but  it  has  been  less  frequent  than  in  the  fjords 
of  Norway.  Sweden  has  no  cathedral  restoration  fund, 
and  she  has  been  spared  the  terrible  "  high  art  "  of  the 
Kaiser,  But  intellectual  and  commercial  Germany, 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         219 

hurrying  at  the  heels  of  military  Germany,  has  taken 
up  the  work  of  its  lord  and  master.  Quick  and  com- 
fortable transit  of  passengers  and  goods  between  the  two 
countries  has  been  established  by  means  of  the  steam 
ferries  between  Trelleborg  in  Sweden  and  Sassnitz  in 
Germany,  a  route  offering  such  facilities  that  the  inter- 
national traffic  has  increased  enormously  within  a  few 
years.  And  no  wonder,  for  a  steam  ferry  as  large  as 
a  liner  and  supplied  with  every  luxury  takes  on  board 
a  complete  railway  train,  sleeping  and  dining  cars  and 
all,  in  such  a  way  that  the  traveller,  having  entered  his 
compartment  in  Stockholm,  needs  not  leave  it,  unless 
he  wishes  to  do  so,  until  he  arrives  in  Berlin.  There 
are  two  daily  services  in  each  direction,  and  they  com- 
pete irresistibly  with  the  boats  which  cross  the  unruly 
waters  of  the  North  Sea  from  Sweden  to  England  only 
twice  a  week. 

It  is  idle  to  disregard  the  material  advantages  gained 
to  Germany  by  the  Trelleborg-Sassnitz  route.  It  has 
had  a  great  influence  on  the  relations  of  the  two  countries 
as  a  whole.  On  the  other  hand,  while  energetic  at- 
tempts have  been  sporadically  made  to  establish  better, 
quicker,  and  more  modern  direct  communications  be- 
tween Sweden  and  England,  nothing  substantial  has  been 
achieved,  and  the  facilities  in  this  respect  remain  to-day 
nearly  the  same  as  they  were  twenty-  five  years  ago. 
Nor  is  it  to  the  credit  of  English  enterprise  that  all  such 
attempts  as  have  been  made  to  establish  a  better  state 
of  things  have  had  their  origin,  not  among  our  own 
traders,  but  among  Swedes  residing  in  this  country. 


22O  Inter  Arma 


But  hitherto  they  have  met  with  no  response  what- 
ever. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  intellectual  intercourse  between  the 
two  countries.  Any  Swedish  man  of  science  who  has 
anything  of  importance  to  impart — and  there  are  many 
of  them  who  have — is  almost  sure  to  see  his  essay  or 
treatise  immediately  translated  into  German,  and  dis- 
cussed in  German  scientific  circles  nearly  as  fully  as  in 
his  own  country.  The  same  is  the  case  with  Swedish 
novelists  and  playwrights.  No  Swedish  writer  of  repute 
has  had  to  wait  long  for  a  German  publisher,  and  very 
often  the  royalties  resulting  from  the  German  editions 
exceed  those  of  his  native  country.  For  instance, 
August  Strindberg,  whom  the  Swedes  regard  as  their 
greatest  modern  genius,  was  more  highly  appreciated  in 
Germany  than  in  any  other  country,  perhaps  his  own 
not  excepted.  It  was  not  until  a  short  time  before 
Strindberg's  death  that  his  name  was  known  to  a  dozen 
persons  in  England.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  the  Swedes  to  see  their  works  become  standard  in 
Germany  almost  as  soon  as,  and  sometimes  even  sooner 
than,  in  their  own  country.  How  many  people  in 
England  outside  a  very  small  circle  of  specialists  could 
name  half  a  dozen  world-famous  Swedish  scientists  and 
writers  after  Linnaeus  and  Swedenborg?  In  Germany 
such  names  are  familiar  to  all  educated  persons. 

Nor  is  English  literature  at  all  a  prominent  part  of 
the  equipment  of  Swedish  intellectual  life.  There  is  a 
fair  acquaintance  with  some  of  our  classics,  and  no  finer 
translation  of  Shakespeare  exists  than  that  sent  forth 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden          221 

from  the  University  of  Upsala  as  the  life-work  of 
Professor  Hagberg.  The  Shakespearean  masterpieces 
are  constantly  found  on  the  repertoire  both  of  the  State 
theatre  and  privately  owned  stages.  The  work  of 
several  modern  English  playwrights  has  been  produced 
with  success  in  each  of  the  Scandinavian  countries. 
Mr.  Kipling  received  the  Nobel  Prize  from  the  Swedish 
Academy,  and  there  is  a  market  for  a  good  deal  of 
popular  English  fiction.  But  the  names  of  Meredith, 
Hardy,  and  Conrad  are  scarcely  known. 

When,  however,  we  pass  outside  the  domain  of  belles- 
lettres,  and  enter  that  of  science,  politics,  and  philosophy, 
the  advantages  enjoyed  by  Germany  are  seen  to  be 
overwhelming.  No  English  works  are  easily  obtain- 
able, while  German  books  of  all  kinds  are  found  in  pro- 
fusion in  every  bookshop.  This  must  not  be  attributed 
to  conscious  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  the  Swedish 
student  to  avail  himself  of  what  English  literature  has 
to  offer  him,  but  simply  to  the  difficulty  which  the 
bookseller  has  in  obtaining  English  books  on  reasonable 
terms.  While  German  publishers  flood  the  Swedish 
book-market  with  everything  they  publish,  and  send 
out  their  books  "  a  condition  "  (that  is  to  say,  on  terms 
of  sale  or  return),  the  English  publishers  sit  in  their 
offices  waiting  for  firm  orders — and  cash.  But  in  a 
country  of  a  little  over  five  million  inhabitants  there  do 
not  exist  many  booksellers  who  can  afford  to  buy  out- 
right works  that  cost  from  half  a  guinea  to  three,  while 
depending  on  the  off  chance  of  selling  them.  It  is  a 
pity  that  the  English  publishing  trade  cannot  discover 


222  Inter  Arma 


some  means  of  opening  to  English  authors  the  valuable 
Scandinavian  market.  At  present  they  abandon  it 
without  a  struggle  to  German  enterprise. 

The  Swedish  newspaper  press  is  remarkably  active, 
and,  for  such  a  small  country,  reasonably  "  up  to  date," 
but  the  complexion  of  a  press  must  to  a  certain  extent 
depend  upon  its  food.  The  Swedish  press  is  as  indepen- 
dent as  the  British,  and  no  "  reptile  "  organs  like  those 
created  by  Bismarck  would  ever  thrive  in  the  Swedish 
climate,  but  if  a  newspaper  cannot  get  the  news  it  wants 
it  is  bound  to  take  what  it  can  get.  Quite  up  to  the 
declaration  of  war,  all  telegraphic  news  sent  from  this 
country  to  Sweden  by  Reuters  had  to  pass  through 
Wolff's  Bureau  in  Berlin,  where  it  was  edited  and  cooked. 
Every  attempt  on  the  Swedish  side — and  such  attempts 
have  been  frequently  made — to  change  this  absurd  state 
of  things,  and  avoid  the  censorship  of  the  branch  office 
in  Wilhelms-strasse  by  getting  into  direct  communica- 
tion with  London,  has  failed  in  consequence  of  British 
apathy  on  the  subject. 

Turning  from  the  commercial  and  intellectual  life  of 
Sweden  to  that  of  the  working  classes,  the  preponderance 
of  German  enterprise  is  no  less  remarkable.1  The  Swedish 
workers  are  Social-Democrats  almost  to  a  man  and 
woman.  In  no  other  European  country  has  the  growth 
of  that  party  been  so  rapid,  and  to-day  the  Labour  Party 

1  The  economical  character  of  Swedish  neutrality  is  forcibly 
defined  in  the  February  1915  number  of  Statsvetenskaplig 
Tidskrift,  by  the  eminent  statistician,  Dr.  Pontus  Fahlbeck, 
of  Lund. 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         223 

is  numerically  the  strongest  in  the  Riksdag.  Wonders 
have  been  accomplished  towards  improving  the  lot  of 
the  worker,  and  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  there 
were  being  started  other  and  wider  schemes  of  social 
betterment. 

But,  as  Hr.  Hjalmar  Branting,  the  leader  of  the 
Swedish  Labour  Party,  has  lately  said — 

"  Our  Labour  Movement  grew  as  a  German  plant 
before  it  took  root  in  and  was  re-shaped  for  the  Swedish 
soil.  And  when  the  Swedish  workers  fought  their 
great  defensive  battle  in  the  general  strike  of  1909,  their 
German  brethren  gave  them  a  powerful  support." 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  if  the  Swedish  worker  has 
had  his  eyes  directed  towards  the  native  land  of  Marx 
and  Lassalle? 

These  favourable  conditions  for  a  general  Germanophil 
sentiment  throughout  the  Swedish  nation  have  not, 
however,  met  with  the  success  which  might  have  been 
anticipated.  In  spite  of  all  the  obstacles  which  have 
blocked  the  way  for  a  proper  comprehension  of  English 
life,  English  thought,  and  English  institutions,  the 
Swede,  who  can  boast  that  his  nation  was  the  first  self- 
governing  people  in  Europe,  has  always  had  a  weak  spot 
in  his  heart  for  the  home  of  democratic  institutions,  the 
land  of  Dickens,  Darwin,  Mill,  and  Gladstone.  While 
duly  appreciating  the  energy  and  the  methodical  work 
of  the  German,  he  has  never  been  able  to  pump  up  any 
great  enthusiasm  for  him  as  an  individual.  To  take 


224  Inter  Arma 


an  instance  from  business  life,  an  English  commercial 
traveller  would  always,  circumstances  and  conditions 
being  equal,  have  preference  over  a  German  rival. 

It  would  be  an  error — and  it  is  an  error  into  which 
various  English  residents  of  Sweden  have  fallen — to 
exaggerate  the  international  character  of  much  that 
has  been  said  in  the  Swedish  press  about  the  situation. 
In  particular,  the  series  of  articles  which  were  published 
in  Aftonbladet  by  Captain  Ernst  Liljedahl,  in  February 
1915,  have  been  much  discussed  and  have  been  con- 
strued in  a  sense  dangerously  unfriendly  to  the  Allies. 
I  confess  that  I  cannot  regard  them  in  this  light. 
The  writer  is  a  captain  in  the  Swedish  army,  an  ardent 
democrat,  and  a  prominent  member  of  the  Riksdag. 
It  is  admitted  that  his  personal  sympathies  are  more 
with  Germany  than  with  Russia.  But  I  am  unable 
to  discover,  in  a  close  study  of  Captain  Liljedahl's 
remarkable  articles,  any  expression  of  a  hope  that 
Germany  will  conquer,  and  he  specifically  condemns  the 
treatment  of  Belgium.  His  aim  is  to  put  clearly  before 
the  Swedish  public  the  danger  which  lurks  for  Sweden 
behind  the  Russification  of  Finland.  His  articles, 
however,  carefully  read,  betray  no  anti-British  feeling, 
and,  like  almost  all  other  Swedish  democrats,  he  looks 
upon  England  as  the  home  of  democratic  ideas. 

The  visit  of  King  Edward  VII  to  Stockholm  in  the 
spring  of  1908  was  almost  immediately  followed  by  a 
similar  visit  from  the  Kaiser.  No  one  witnessing  both 
of  these  events  could  avoid  observing  the  enormous 
difference  in  the  attitude  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         225 

on  these  two  occasions.  The  reception  of  the  Kaiser 
was  friendly  and  even  respectful;  the  conventional 
cheers  always  granted  to  a  visiting  monarch  were  not 
lacking.  But  the  welcome  awarded  to  King  Edward 
and  Queen  Alexandra  was  on  a  different  plane  altogether. 
Here  it  was  obvious  that  the  people  had  their  hearts  in 
the  business.  The  cheers  from  the  enormous  crowds  of 
working-class  people  were  deafening,  and  the  air  was 
white  with  fluttering  handkerchiefs.  It  was  a  spon- 
taneous outburst  on  the  part  of  the  population,  not  the 
ordinary  politeness  of  the  inquisitive  sightseer.  It  was 
democratic  Sweden  welcoming  the  representative  of 
democratic  England.  It  is  not  only  possible  but  almost 
certain  that  in  the  heartiness  of  this  greeting,  quite 
unusual  in  Sweden,  there  lay  an  expression  of  gratitude 
and  acknowledgment  to  the  English  monarch  for  the 
friendly  part  that  England,  its  government  and  its 
press  had  played  in  the  recent  settlement  of  the  Aland 
Islands  affair. 

These  islands,  situated  in  the  Baltic,  quite  close  to  the 
Swedish  coast,  were  ceded  by  Sweden  to  Russia,  as  an 
appanage  of  Finland,  in  the  peace  of  Abo  after  the  war 
of  1809.  It  is  known  that  this  was  done  through  an 
error  or  an  oversight  on  the  part  of  the  Swedish  negoti- 
ator, as  they  were  not  demanded  by  Russia.  However, 
ceded  they  were,  and  in  due  time,  in  spite  of  repeated 
promises  to  England,  the  largest  of  them  became  strongly 
fortified.  During  the  Crimean  war,  the  British  fleet 
under  Napier  went  into  the  Baltic,  bombarded  the  Aland 
fortress  of  Bomarsund,  and  razed  it  to  the  ground. 
Q 


226  Inter  Arma 


In  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  1856,  which  concluded  the  Crimean 
war,  the  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias  undertook,  as  a 
condition  of  peace  with  Great  Britain  and  France,  not 
to  fortify  the  Aland  Islands  again. 

This  state  of  things  remained  unaltered  until  1907, 
when  the  Anglo-Russian  entente  was  arranged.  Very 
soon  M.  Isvolsky,  the  Russian  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  approached  the  British  and  French  govern- 
ments with  the  proposition  that  the  Paris  Treaty,  in 
so  far  as  it  concerned  the  non-fortification  of  the  Aland 
Islands,  should  be  considered  abrogated.  Not  that 
Russia  really  wanted  to  fortify  the  Aland  Islands,  not 
that  she  had  any  sinister  designs  on  Sweden,  but  it  was 
a  slur  on  the  sovereignty  of  a  great  power  that  she  was 
not  allowed  to  do  what  she  liked  on  her  own  territory. 
The  susceptibilities  of  the  Swedes  are  delicate,  and  the 
country  was  dangerously  excited  by  this  unexpected 
occurrence,  for  a  glance  at  the  map  shows  that  the 
re-fortification  of  Bomarsund  would  practically  have 
meant  the  bottling  up  of  the  whole  Gulf  of  Bothnia,  and 
the  consequent  cutting  off  of  the  northern  part  of  Sweden 
with  regard  to  naval  defence.  To  meet  such  a  danger 
to  the  integrity  and  independence  of  the  country  an 
enormous  expense  in  armaments  would  have  been 
necessary,  an  expense  which  would  have  crippled  the 
finances  of  even  such  a  prosperous  and  economically 
sound  country  as  Sweden.  But  quite  apart  from  this, 

O 

a  fortified  Aland  would  have  had  a  most  deplorable 
moral  effect.  It  would  have  been  a  pistol  constantly 
levelled  at  the  heart  of  Sweden ;  it  would  have  meant, 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         227 

as  a  politician  at  the  time  expressed  it,  "  that  the 
wishes  of  a  Russian  minister  at  Stockholm  would  be 
turned  into  commands." 

That  the  proud  and  independent  Swedes,  who  do  not 
wish  for  anything  but  to  live  in  peace  and  on  the 
friendliest  terms  with  all  their  neighbours,  should  submit 
to  a  permanent  position  of  "  hands  up,"  was  not  to  be 
supposed  for  a  moment.  Directly  the  facts  became 
known  the  whole  nation  was  united.  Party  feeling — 
and  it  was  running  pretty  high  at  that  time — dis- 
appeared ;  the  whole  press  spoke  with  one  voice,  and  in 
the  then-assembled  Riksdag  Conservatives  combined 
with  Liberals  and  Socialists  in  a  unanimous  protest 
against  any  attempt  to  weaken  the  defensive  position 
of  Sweden. 

The  further  development  and  settlement  of  this  affair 
are  too  recent  history  to  be  entered  upon  here  in  detail, 
but  it  is  an  open  secret  that  it  was  the  firm  attitude  of 
the  British  government,  backed  by  almost  the  entire 
English  press,  in  insisting  upon  the  status  quo  in  the 
Baltic,  that  averted  the  threatening  danger  from  the 
shores  of  Sweden.  In  this  crisis,  although  Germany 
did  nothing  to  help,  her  sympathy  and  even  her  com- 
passion were  expressed  with  the  unctuous  effusion  of  a 
Codlin. 

In  the  whole  of  this  delicate  question,  and  in  the 
broader  and  essentially  less  delicate  question  of  Finland, 
we  shall  form  no  accurate  idea  of  the  present  position 
of  Sweden  unless  we  glance  at  her  historic  character, 
and  try  to  realise  what  may  be  called  her  historic 


228  Inter  Arma 


experience.  Sweden  possesses  the  natural  dignity  of 
those  who  have  striven  for  glory,  and  have  won  the 
laurels  only  to  see  them  wither  and  turn  to  dust.  She 
has  exercised  in  years  long  past  the  Thucydidean  virtues 
of  determination,  prudence,  and  discipline,  but  she  has 
come  in  the  ripeness  of  age  to  accept  the  summing-up 
of  our  divine  poet — 

"  Oh  heart  !    oh  blood  that  freezes,  blood  that  burns  ! 

Earth's  returns 
For  whole  centuries  of  folly,  noise,  and  sin  ! 

Shut  them  in, 
With  their  triumphs  and  their  glories  and  the  rest ! 

Love  is  best." 

We  shall  understand  the  present  attitude  of  Sweden 
most  clearly  by  glancing  for  a  moment  at  the  glories 
and  deceptions  of  her  past. 

According  to  the  most  ancient  legends  of  the  Swedes, 
it  was  Odin  who  founded  the  empire  of  the  Svea.  He 
brought  his  pontiffs  out  of  the  Greater  Scythia,  Svithjod, 
and  marshalled  them  around  the  mystic  altar  which  he 
raised  at  Sigtuna,  on  Lake  Maelar,  where  then  and  there 
he  created  Sweden,  the  Lesser  Scythia.  The  gay  little 
town  of  Sigtuna,  now  a  mere  summer- village  on  the  way 
from  Stockholm  to  Upsala,  is  proud  of  the  ruins  of  the 
four  great  minsters  which  the  Esthonians  shattered  in 
1187,  but  it  is  imposing  to  the  traveller  only  when  he 
reflects  upon  its  high  antiquity,  and  on  the  sacred  flame 
which  lighted  on  its  altar  the  earliest  beacon  of  Swedish 
nationality.  The  primal  history  of  the  country,  and  of 
its  gods  and  pontiff-kings  and  invading  Finnish  giants, 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         229 

are  they  not  written  in  the  fabulous  chronicles  of  the 
Svea,  and  enshrined  for  our  wonder  in  Ynglingasaga 
and  in  Heimskringla?  I  mention  them  here  because 
of  their  beautiful  remoteness,  and  because  they  give 
the  Swede  of  to-day  a  basis  for  his  proper  hereditary 
pride.  His  nation  is  no  new-comer  among  the  peoples 
of  the  earth;  on  the  contrary,  though  its  peaks  are 
shrouded  in  the  thick  mist  of  fable,  the  solid  rock  of 
Swedish  history  rises  up  far  beyond  the  Christian  era. 
But  as  little  as  Sigtuna  desires  to-day  to  rebuild  its 
pagan  fanes  and  renew  the  worship  of  Odin,  so  little 
does  the  Sweden  of  our  age  nourish  an  ambition  for 
territorial  aggrandisement.  To  represent  the  Swedes 
as  anxious  to  secure  something  out  of  the  eventual 
hurly-burly,  or  as  tainted  by  the  land-grabbing  fever,  is 
wholly  to  misjudge  the  temper  of  every  class  in  Sweden. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  after 
the  romantic  wars  of  Charles  X,  which  permanently 
impressed  the  imagination  of  Europe,  Sweden  rose 
from  the  negotiations  at  Copenhagen  and  at  Stolbova 
in  the  position  of  a  great  power.  She  had  not  merely 
an  immense  and  unparalleled  prestige,  but  her  territory 
was  twice  as  extensive  as  it  is  to-day.  She  held  the 
whole  of  the  interior  of  the  Baltic,  the  mouths  of  the 
great  German  rivers,  half  the  lakes  of  northern  Russia, 
and  an  influence  which  made  itself  felt  as  far  off  as  the 
Black  Sea.  But  in  order  to  gain  this  immense  territory 
she  had  been  obliged  to  bleed  herself  almost  to  exhaustion 
of  men  and  money,  and  she  had  acquired  the  bitter 
detestation  of  all  her  neighbours.  In  five  years,  from 


230  Inter  Arma 


having  been  the  champion  of  Protestantism  in  Europe, 
she  had  earned  the  hatred  of  every  Protestant  power. 
Sweden  had  her  fill  of  supremacy,  and,  like  the  child  set 
loose  in  the  confectioner's  shop,  her  taste  for  it  was 
sickened  in  perpetuity. 

It  has  been  observed  by  an  acute  Swedish  historian, 
Dr.  Oskar  Dumrath,  that  the  sources  of  the  prodigious 
calamities  of  Sweden  after  the  battles  of  1676  and  1677 
were  "  anti-ethnographical."  Charles  X  was  the  great 
example  of  the  conqueror  who  seeks  to  enlarge  his 
dominions  by  a  cynical  disregard  of  the  elements  which 
he  is  forcing  into  the  national  conglomeration.  Pome- 
ranians and  Poles,  Russians  and  Prussians,  Hoist einers 
and  Danes,  all  were  dragooned  by  the  policy  of  Magnus 
de  la  Gardie  into  a  confederacy,  the  parts  of  which 
remained  mutually  hateful  to  one  another  as  well  as 
inherently  hostile  to  the  common  tyrant.  The  extra- 
ordinarily exciting  and  picturesque  history  of  Sweden, 
from  the  proclamation  of  Charles  IX  in  1600  to  the 
Peace  of  Nystad  in  1721,  is  an  object-lesson  in  the  limits 
and  principles  of  national  ambition.  Through  indul- 
gence in  an  appetite  for  the  mere  trappings  of  glory, 
Sweden  sank  to  the  position  of  a  second-rate  power, 
stripped  of  all  her  unrighteous  conquests,  and  saved 
from  disaster  only  by  the  unity  of  her  own  native  states. 
There  could  not  be  a  more  wholesome  example  of  the 
danger  of  territorial  "  frightfulness,"  or  of  the  folly  of 
burdening  the  fortunes  of  a  people  with  the  weight  of 
unwilling  Alsaces  and  trampled  Posens. 

But  there  is  an  aspect  of  this  historic  experience  which 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         231 

is  little  understood  by  those  who  look  at  Swedish  affairs 
from  a  distance  and  without  special  knowledge.  The 
result  of  her  bitter  disappointments  in  the  eighteenth 
century  has  been  to  disillusion  Sweden  completely  and 
for  ever  as  to  the  flavour  of  the  fruits  of  conquest. 
At  Pultawa  and  at  Fredrikshald  those  fruits  turned  to 
ashen  dust  between  her  lips,  and  if  Sweden  looks  back 
with  romantic  pride  to  the  prowess  of  Charles  XII,  it  is 
also  with  a  steady  determination  never  again  to  risk  the 
nation's  happiness  at  the  call  of  military  ambition. 
From  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  Swedes 
gradually  withdrew  from  all  their  conquests.  They 
abandoned  Pomerania  and  Holstein  in  17.20,  in  1721 
they  yielded  Esthonia  and  Livonia,  in  1809  they  made 
the  grievous  sacrifice  of  Finland.  Long  before  this 
they  had  peacefully  relinquished  to  the  Dutch  the 
American  territories  held  by  the  New  Sweden  Company 
in  the  State  of  Delaware,  and  finally  the  island  of  St. 
Bartholomew  in  the  West  Indies,  the  last  of  all  the 
foreign  or  colonial  possessions  of  Sweden,  was  peacefully 
ceded  to  France.  When,  in  1877,  the  Swedish  flag  was 
lowered  over  the  court-house  of  Gustavia,  it  was  a  sign 
that  Sweden  finally  withdrew  from  all  competition  with 
other  foreign  powers. 

Yet  there  may  have  been  many  aliens  who  regretted 
the  self-abnegation  of  Sweden.  The  memory  of 
Swedish  rule  lives  pleasantly  in  the  recollection  of  her 
former  provinces  of  Pomerania  and  Esthonia.  Her  aim 
never  was  to  oppress,  but  to  educate  and  raise  her 
subjects,  while  even  in  Delaware  the  Minquas  Indians 


232  Inter  Arma 


lamented  the  departure  of  those  whom  they  called  "  Our 
White  Brothers."  Dr.  Gustaf  Sundbarg  claims  not 
too  much  when  he  says — 

"  History  has  not  many — perhaps,  indeed,  no — 
instances  to  present  that  bear  comparison  with  Sweden's 
treatment  of  conquered  Finland ;  how  the  former 
moulded  the  latter  into  a  sister  people  with  the  grant 
of  a  full  share  in  the  civilisation  to  which  she  had  herself 
attained;  how  the  superior  race  literally  educated  the 
inferior,  in  just  the  same  manner  as  in  private  life  the 
elders  educate  their  juniors,  but  in  a  manner  which  is 
not  by  any  means  regularly  adopted  between  nations." 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  instances  of  this  placable 
and  easy  attitude  of  the  Swedes,  which  may  involve  a 
weakness  as  well  as  a  strength,  but  which  at  all  events 
is  inconsistent  with  any  such  desire  for  territorial 
aggrandisement  as  has  been  absurdly  attributed  to 
Sweden  by  some  impatient  pressmen.  Nor  is  there  in 
this  reserved  attitude  of  the  nation  anything  which 
responds  to  the  braggart  lust  of  domination  which  has 
made  Germany  so  hateful.  Left  to  herself,  there  is  no 
question  that  Sweden  would  repudiate  the  Devil  of 
Potsdam  and  all  his  ways,  with  the  maximum  of  pacific 
horror.  But  she  has  not  been  left  to  herself,  and  it  is 
necessary,  if  we  are  to  understand  the  attitude  of 
Sweden,  to  give  careful  attention  to  what  she  has  per- 
suaded herself  to  think  is  the  attitude  of  her  neighbour, 
Russia. 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         233 

Apart  altogether  from  the  instinctive  feeling  of 
sympathy  with  the  Finnish  nation,  whose  culture  was 
originally,  as  we  have  seen,  built  up  by  Sweden,  the 
nation  west  of  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia  has  watched  the 
Russification  of  the  east  of  that  gulf  with  an  alarm 
which  may  be  baseless  but  must  be  admitted  to  be 
natural.  It  is  not  merely  the  existence  of  social  and 
racial  ties  with  Finland  which  makes  the  treatment  of 
that  duchy  a  matter  of  anxiety  in  Stockholm,  but 
geographical  conditions  also.  We  have  but  to  look  at 
the  map  to  perceive  that  the  most  elementary  sense  of 
self-preservation  has  made  Sweden  feel  the  necessity 
of  putting  her  house  in  order  with  regard  to  her  national 
defence.  But  it  is  imperative  on  us  to  admit  that 
as  far  as  Sweden  is  concerned  not  the  wildest  stretch  of 
imagination  could  put  any  other  construction  upon  the 
reorganisation  of  her  defensive  forces  than  the  necessity 
of  being  prepared,  as  far  as  her  resources  would  allow 
her,  to  meet  any  attempt  to  violate  her  neutrality  and 
her  independence. 

The  Swedes  are  a  peaceful  nation  at  heart.  The  old 
viking  spirit  that  made  them  go  roving  over  western 
Europe,  and  even  as  far  as  Byzantium,  is  dead.  The 
love  of  adventure  has  found  other  expressions.  They 
may  still  go  down  to  the  sea  in  their  ships,  but  now  it  is 
not  for  raiding  English,  German,  French,  or  Levantine 
coasts,  but  to  unravel  the  secrets  of  the  icebound  Arctic 
and  Antarctic  regions  or  to  unearth  the  marvels  of 
the  long-forgotten  buried  cities  in  the  South  American 


234  Inter  Arma 


jungle.  The  Swede  loves  his  own  country,  but  he  hates 
no  other.  His  only  desire  is  to  live  in  peace  and  on 
good  terms  with  all  his  neighbours  and  to  be  allowed  to 
go  on  with  the  development  of  his  own  natural  resources 
in  forest,  mine,  and  waterfall.  He  does  not  want  to 
interfere  with  any  other  country,  but  neither  does  he 
want  any  other  country  to  interfere  with  him. 

The  great  upheaval  that  took  place  in  Russia  after  the 
Russo-Japanese  war  brought  the  Russification  of  the 
Grand  Duchy  to  a  standstill,  and  even  caused  a  return 
to  former  more  liberal  methods.  But  this  was  only 
temporary.  The  revolution  suppressed  and  the  danger 
averted  gave  new  vigour  to  the  work  of  Russian  bureau- 
cracy. It  was  a  case  of  reculer  pour  mieux  sauter.  The 
statesmen  watching  affairs  from  Stockholm  were  alarmed 
to  see  the  Finnish  constitution  again  violated,  time  after 
time,  and  Finnish  citizens  and  officials  imprisoned  in 
Russian  fortresses  or  sent  to  Siberia.  In  the  name  of 
Russian  unification,  the  ancient  liberties  of  Finland 
were  swallowed  morsel  by  morsel.  Strategic  railways, 
of  the  ultimate  purpose  of  which  there  scarcely  could 
be  any  doubt,  were  being  planned  and  built  at  a  great 
pace,  thus  connecting  the  railway  system  of  Russia  with 
many  points  on  the  Finnish  coast.  If  there  had  been 
any  doubt  left  in  Swedish  minds  of  the  intentions  of  the 
militarist  clique  in  Russia,  it  was  swept  away  by  the 
sensational  espionage  disclosures  which  occurred  during 
1913,  and  are  a  matter  of  public  knowledge.  Russian 
military  spies  were  found  in  great  numbers  all  over  the 
country,  and  the  most  disquieting  part  of  this  un- 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         235 

palatable  business  was  that  the  Russian  military  attache 
in  Stockholm  was  so  deeply  implicated  that  he  had  to 
leave  the  country.  Was  it  surprising  that  Sweden 
should  feel  alarmed  ?  It  is  quite  possible  that  her  fears 
were  exaggerated,  but  she  can  hardly  be  blamed  if  she 
looked  upon  the  machinations  of  her  neighbour  with  a 
certain  distrust.  All  measures  taken  by  Russia  seemed 
to  her  to  have  only  one  possible  aim.  She  received 
ample  assurances  that  there  were  no  evil  designs  behind 
what  was  going  on,  but  her  fears  were  not  at  rest.  The 
fate  of  Finland  was  before  her  eyes,  and  she  was  deter- 
mined not  to  share  it  if  she  could  possibly  avoid  it.  If 
the  hour  of  her  destiny  should  strike,  she  would  certainly 
do  her  utmost  to  defend  her  integrity  and  independence, 
but  she  knew  that  she  could  scarcely  hope  to  hold  out 
for  a  long  period  against  the  overwhelming  numbers 
that  might  be  hurled  against  her  unless  she  could  count 
upon  the  assistance  of  some  powerful  friend,  whose 
interest  it  might  be  not  to  let  her  be  crushed  between 
the  paws  of  the  Great  Bear.  This  was  Germany's 
chance,  and  no  pains  were  spared  in  Berlin  to  assure  the 
Swedes  that,  if  Russia  attacked  them,  Germany  would 
put  her  mailed  fist  between  them  and  the  advancing 
monster.  With  these  cautiously  "  unofficial "  assur- 
ances were  mingled  solemn  warnings  not  to  trust  to 
England  or  to  France.  Germany,  and  Germany  alone, 
would  come  to  Sweden's  help  in  the  hour  of  need.  It 
was  again  the  old  story,  "  Codlin's  your  friend — not 
Short." 
Nevertheless,  it  was  still  natural  for  Sweden  to  look 


236  Inter  Arma 


for  support  towards  the  Western  powers,  who  had 
guaranteed  her  integrity  of  1855.  Republican  France 
and  democratic  England  surely  could  not  stand  by  and 
see  such  a  civilised  nation  as  the  Swedish  reduced  to 
the  condition  of  Poland  and  Finland  ?  Could  England 
permit  a  rival  great  power  to  establish  a  naval  base  on 
the  Atlantic  seaboard  almost  facing  her  own  northern 
naval  stations? 

But  the  situation  in  Europe  changed.  The  Franco- 
Russian  alliance  was  concluded.  Sweden  regarded  it  as 
a  promising  sign  of  better  things  to  come  that  the 
"  Marseillaise  "  was  played  and  applauded  at  Tsarskoje 
Selo,  but  she  grew  serious  once  more  when  this  was 
followed  by  even  louder  applause  of  the  "  All  for  the 
Tsar  "  at  the  filysee.  Yet  she  lulled  her  apprehensions. 
The  French  squadron  that  went  on  the  first  alliance- 
visit  to  Kronstadt  had  called  at  Stockholm  on  its  way, 
and  enjoyed  there  a  reception  that  stands  alone  in  the 
records  of  enthusiasm. 

Then  came  1907  with  the  Anglo- Russian  entente,  and 
the  shadow  of  suspicion  fell  once  more  darkly  over 
Scandinavia.  To  be  sure,  the  position  taken  up  by 

o 

Great  Britain  over  the  Aland  Islands  question  raised 
new  hopes,  but  as  the  years  went  on  these  became 
fainter.  Sweden  began  to  question  whether  the  sym- 
pathy and  sentiment  of  the  English  would  take  the 
form  of  practical  and  active  support.  In  the  perturbed 
state  of  public  opinion  a  good  many  people  in  Sweden 
began  speculating  about  what  other  great  power  could 
possibly  be  appealed  to,  to  avert  the  dangers  that 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         237 

seemed  looming  in  the  distance.  The  answer  was  ready  : 
it  was  to  the  other  side  of  the  Baltic  that  she  must  look. 
For,  if  Sweden  were  crushed,  Russia  would  be  almost 
omnipotent  in  the  Baltic,  and  Germany  would  be  left 
in  a  perilous  position.  Nor  had  Sweden  any  reason  to 
fear  Germany.  She  was  on  the  most  friendly  political 
terms  with  that  great  central  European  empire,  and 
their  commercial  and  intellectual  intercourse  was  of 
the  most  intimate  and  profitable  kind. 

If  in  circumstances  like  these  Sweden  had  gone  to  the 
length  of  thinking  of  an  alliance,  no  one  could  have 
been  surprised.  Even  France,  with  her  powerful  army, 
had  found  it  necessary  for  her  own  safety  to  enter  into 
close  relations  with  Russia,  while  England  had  in  effect 
relinquished  her  traditional  isolation.  What  wonder, 
then,  if  a  nation  of  some  five  million  souls  scattered  over 
a  large  country  should  follow  such  examples? 

But  Sweden  was  not  to  be  tempted  into  any  kind  of 
alliance.  Certain  voices,  it  is  true,  began  to  cry  out 
that  the  only  sane  policy  for  Sweden  was  an  alliance 
with  Germany,  but  they  cried  in  the  wilderness.  The 
government  persisted  in  the  long-established  policy  of 
absolute  neutrality,  and  showed  on  several  occasions 
its  sincere  intention  to  live  on  good  and  friendly  terms 
with  all  her  neighbours.  To  the  wheedling  German 
intriguers  Sweden  suavely  replied  that,  while  ready 
to  guard  and  defend  her  vital  interests,  she  was  not  to 
be  enticed  into  any  European  combination.  This  was 
the  will  of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  and  succeeding  govern- 
ments have  given  unbroken  expression  to  it.  It  is  a 


238  Inter  Arma 


continuation  of  this  policy  which  has  actuated  that  which 
Hr.  Hammarskjold  has  pursued  since  the  outbreak  of  war. 
The  Swedish  people  themselves  have  shown  their  strong 
feelings  of  sympathy  with  the  Russian  nation  by  their 
hospitable  and  friendly  treatment  of  the  tens  of  thousands 
of  Russian  refugees  who  passed  through  Sweden  on  their 
way  back  to  their  own  country.  The  Swedes  did  this 
in  such  a  way  and  on  such  a  scale  that  both  the  refugees 
themselves  and  the  Russian  government  scarcely  could 
find  words  adequately  to  express  their  admiration  and 
gratitude. 

On  one  matter,  about  which  there  has  been  mis- 
understanding or  confusion,  it  is  desirable  to  make  some 
final  explanation.  This  is  the  question  of  railway 
communication  across  the  northern  provinces  of  Scan- 
dinavia. We  read  sometimes  in  the  English  press  of 
a  "  Russian  intrigue  "  to  get  a  railway  from  Finland  to 
the  Atlantic.  Here  is  a  confusion  of  ideas,  excusable 
from  the  great  imperfection  of  the  maps  which  are  in 
general  English  use.  Two  separate  projects  are  here 
mixed  together,  and  they  must  be  distinguished.  For 
a  long  time  past,  Swedish  pessimists  have  been  saying 
that  Russia  might  find  it  to  her  advantage  to  attack 
Sweden  and  Norway  simultaneously,  because  she  would 
thereby  acquire  the  northern  provinces  of  the  peninsula, 
and  so  control  the  railway  which  was  opened  in  1903, 
and  which  runs  from  Luleci  on  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia, 
through  Gellivara,  to  Narvik  (Viktoriahavn)  on  the 
Ofoten  Fjord.  The  importance  of  Narvik  is  that, 
though  it  is  well  within  the  Arctic  Circle,  it  is  completely 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden          239 

and  invariably  ice-free.  By  linking  up  this  railway, 
which  is  the  northernmost  in  the  world,  with  the  system 
of  Finnish  railways  which  comes  up  on  the  eastern  side 
of  the  Swedish  frontier — and  in  fact  these  railways  have 
quite  recently  been  completed  on  the  Russian  side  right 
up  to  the  last  Finnish  outpost,  Tornea — Russia  would 
get  a  clear  run  from  the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic. 

This  is  one  thing;  quite  another  is  no  "  intrigue  "  at 
all,  but  the  openly  expressed  desire  of  the  Russian 
government  that  Sweden  should  prolong  her  railway 
system — which  used  to  end  at  Morjarv,  but  has  recently 
been  extended  to  Karungi — quite  up  to  the  Finnish- 
Russian  frontier,  so  that  this  linking-up  should  take 
place  now,  and  facilitate  immediately  and  in  the  friend- 
liest way  the  railway  traffic  between  the  two  countries, 
which  the  war  has  enormously  increased.  The  only 
possible  route  in  winter  from  western  Europe  to  Russia 
is  through  Newcastle,  Bergen,  Christiania,  and  Karungi. 
At  present,  when  traffic  reaches  Karungi,  the  final  station 
on  the  Swedish  side,  it  has  to  be  connected  with  the 
Russian  end-station  by  a  laborious  system  of  sledges  and 
motors.  There  may  be  military  objections  which  are 
not  patent  to  a  foreigner,  and  of  course  nothing  could 
be  done  without  the  deliberate  consent  of  the  Riksdag. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  convenience  of  the  Allies, 
the  completion  of  this  railway  route  is  much  to  be 
desired. 

To  sum  up,  the  main  cause  of  such  want  of  sympathy 
with  England  and  France  as  is  to  be  detected  to-day 
in  the  attitude  of  Sweden  is  due  to  her  ancient  haunting 


240  Inter  Arma 


fear  of  the  aggressiveness  of  Russia.  This  is  a  matter 
which  it  behoves  us  to  approach  with  the  greatest 
delicacy,  but  it  is  obvious  that  no  appreciation  of 
Scandinavian  opinion  can  be  formed  if  it  is  ignored. 
The  happy  conclusion  of  the  Aland  Islands  scare  in 
1908  greatly  relieved  the  tension,  and  Sweden  remains 
grateful  to  us  for  our  share  in  that  relief.  But  it  is  idle 
to  deny  that  there  remained  other  causes  for  a  certain 
apprehension.  The  Bobrikoff  regime  in  Finland,  and 
the  efforts  to  nullify  that  Finnish  constitution  which 
every  Czar  since  1809  had  sworn  to  uphold,  cannot  be 
pleasant  for  the  Swedes,  whose  language  is  spoken  and 
written  by  the  educated  classes  of  Finland,  and  who 
have  close  intellectual  and  moral  relationship  with  the 
Finns.  Sweden  may  misjudge  the  intentions  of  Russia, 
but  she  is  agitated  to  see  her  gigantic  neighbour  pushing 
closer  and  closer  to  that  ice-free  port  on  the  Atlantic 
which  Peter  the  Great  is  supposed  to  have  emphasised  in 
his  will  as  one  of  the  essentials  of  Russian  domination. 
The  probability  is  that  the  fears  of  Sweden  are  un- 
founded, and  that  the  dread  of  Russia  which  warps  all 
her  political  judgment  is  a  mere  bugbear.  But  would  it 
not  be  in  the  interest  of  Russia  herself  to  remove  the 
cause  of  that  fear  and  mistrust?  A  stroke  of  the  pen 
by  the  all-powerful  Tsar,  giving  back  to  Finland  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  war  her  constitutional  liberties,  would 
not  only  make  that  country  once  more  the  most  loyal 
part  of  the  great  Russian  empire,  and  unify  her  with 
Russia  far  more  than  could  be  done  by  any  ukase  of 
restrictions  and  suppressions,  but  it  would  be  hailed  by 


The  Neutrality  of  Sweden         241 

Sweden  with  enthusiasm  as  the  most  perfect  proof  that 
Russia  harbours  no  designs  on  her  neighbour  across 
the  Baltic.  It  would  inaugurate  an  era  of  sincere  friend- 
ship between  the  two  countries,  and  it  would  increase 
the  commercial,  industrial,  and  intellectual  intercourse 
between  them,  to  the  immediate  benefit  of  both. 

And  why  not  improve  upon  the  occasion  ?  Why  not 
say  to  Sweden  :  "  These  Aland  Islands,  which  have 
worried  you  so  much,  take  them  back.  We  got  them  by 
a  diplomatic  accident,  without  having  asked  for  them ; 
we  do  not  want  them.  Let  them  lie  there,  unfortified, 
of  course,  and  permanently  neutral,  as  a  signal  proof 
of  our  trust  in  each  other." 

It  would  be  a  grand  geste  of  a  grand  seigneur,  and 
Russia,  the  great,  the  powerful,  the  generous  Russia, 
could  well  afford  it.  What  would  the  world  say?  Its 
answer  would  be,  "  This  is,  indeed,  the  doing  of  the  Tsar 
of  Hague  fame;  it  may  not  be  war,  but  it  is  certainly 
magnificent !  " 

April  1915. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


"  ADMIRAL  HOSIER'S  GHOST," 

Glover's,  no 

Aland  Islands,  225,  226,  241 
"  Alcaic  Ode,"  Sir  W.  Jones', 

112 

Arras,     outrages     perpetrated 
on,  85-92 

Banville,  Theodore  de,  28 
Barbier,    Auguste :  his    times, 

and  first  satires,  176 
"La       Curee,"       179-180; 

lambes,  181 ;  IlPianto,  182 
visits      England  :       attacks 

social     order,     treatment 

of  insane,  drink  question 

and    other    problems    in 

England,  183-205 
Lazare,  183-185;  "  Le  Gin," 

1 88 ;  "LeMinotaure,"  189 ; 

"  La  Lyre  d'Airain,"  192; 

"  La  Tamise,"   193;  "  Le 

Fouet,"    194;    "  Les   Mi- 

neurs  de  Newcastle,"  195; 

"  Westminster,"          197; 

"Les      Hustings,"      198; 

"  Le   Pilote,"    200;    "  La 

Nature,"  204 
Barres,  M.  Maurice,  36,  51,  57- 

58,  158 
"  Battle      of      the      Baltic," 

Campbell's,  123 
"  Battle  of  Minden,"  Erasmus 

Darwin's,  in 
Bedier,  M.  Joseph,  49 
Belgian  Literature,  7-9 
Botrel,    Theodore :    his   work, 

JSS-iSS;    romance  of  his 

career,  157-158 


Boissonas,  Mile.,  23 

Bourget,    M.     Paul,     12,     30, 

52 

Branting,  Hr.  Hjalmar,  215 
Brooke,  Rupert,  167 
Broqueville,  General  de,  158 
Byron,   poems  on  Napoleonic 

wars,       121,      122,      132, 

133 

"  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrim- 
age," 121,  132 

"  Curse  of  Minerva,"  122 

"  Ode  to  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte," "  Ode  on  Venice," 
128 

"  Don  Juan,"  136 

Campbell,  123 

Capus,  M.  Alfred,  36 

Carlyle,  62,  63 

"  Chants     des     Anglais,"     M. 

Fort's,  169 
Chants    du  Bivouac,    Botrel's, 

159 

Chants  du  Soldat,  Deroulede's, 
142,  149 

"  Character  of  the  Happy 
Warrior,"  Wordsworth's, 
118 

Charleville,  86,  104 

Coleridge,    S.    T.,    poems    on 

Napoleonic  wars,  3 
"  Ode     on     the     departing 

Year,"  116 

"  Fire,  Famine  and  Slaugh- 
ter," "  France,"  "  Fears 
in  Solitude,"  "  British 
Stripling's  War  Song," 
117 


245 


246 


Index 


"  Convention       of       Cintra," 

Wordsworth's,  119 
Coquelin,  148 
"  Cry  of  the  Children,"  Mrs. 

Browning's,  193 
"  Curee,"  Barbier's,  179,  180 
"  Curse  of  Minerva,"  Byron's, 

122 

"  Dance    of    Death,"    Scott's, 

131 
Darwin,  E.,   "  Battle  of  Min- 

den,"  in 

Demolder,  M.  Eugene,  7 
Dimon  de  Midi,  M.  Bourget's, 

12,  30 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  129 
Deroutede,     Paul :     character- 
istics   of   his   work,    142- 

*45 

birth  and  earliest  works,  145 
period  of  public  fame,  145- 

15° 

Chants  du  Soldat,  149,  150 
Nouveaux  Chants  du  Soldat, 
Marches  et  Sonnenes,  150; 
other    works    and    anec- 
dotes, 151-155 

Desjardins,  M.  Paul,  49 

Despax,  Emile,  164 

Discours  de  Reception,  Kenan's, 
46 

Dourlent,  Abbe,  94 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  17 

Dumrath,  Hr.  Oskar,  230 

"  English  Eclogues,"  Sou  th- 
ey's,  1 1 8 

"Enquete  sur  la  Jeunesse," 
52 

Erskine,  Lord,  131 

Fabie,  M.  Frangois,  165 
"  Faemina,"  n,  12 
Faguet,  M.  Emile,  52,  53 
Fahlbeck,  Dr.  Pontus,  222 
"  Fears    in    Solitude,"     Cole- 
ridge's, 117 


"  Field  of  Waterloo,"  Scott's, 

131 

"  Fire,  Famine  and  Slaugh- 
ter," Coleridge's,  117 

Flaubert,  19,  22,  28 

Fort,  M.  Paul,  78,  165-168 
references    to    the    English, 
169 

"  France,"  Coleridge's,  117 

Gambetta,  18 
Gautier,  T.,  20-22 
Gerb6viller,     destruction     of, 

IOI-IO2 

Giraud,  M.  Albert,  8 
Goncourt,     Edmond    de,    28, 

Gorres,  J.  J.  von,  79,  80 
Guerin,  Eugenie  de,  58,  59 
Guizot,  1 6,  17 

Hallays,  M.  Andre,  98 

"  Hallowed  Ground,"  Camp- 
bell's, 124 

Hammarskjold,  Hr.,  210,  211, 
238 

Hanotaux,  M.  G.,  36 

"  Happy  Warrior,"  Words- 
worth's, 1 1 8,  136 

Hardy,  Mr.  T.,  137,  166 

Heine,  75,  183 

Herve,  M.  Gustave,  54,  56-58, 
66 

Hugo,  Victor,  15,  16,    25,  26, 

77 
Humieres,  Robert  d',  164 

lambes,  Barbier's,  181 

//  Pianto,  Barbier's,  182 

"  Inscriptions,"  Southey's,  120 

Jadart,  M.  Henri,  84,  85 
Janin,  Jules,  18 
Jaures,  56 
Jusserand,  M.,  24 

Keats,  113 

Kipling,  Mr.  Rudyard,  221 


Index 


247 


Lamy,  M.  Eugene,  67 
Lapradc,  Victor  de,  23 
Lazare,  Barbier's,  183 
Le    mystere    de    la    charite    de 

Jeanne  d'Arc,  Peguy's,  61 
Lemaitre,  Jules,  13,  14 
Lemonnier,  Camille,  7 
Les   Cahiers  de  la  Quinazine, 

Peguy's,  62 

Liegeard,  M.  Stephane,  165 
Liljedahl,  Captain  E.,  224 
Littre,  18,  19 
Loti,  M.  Pierre,  78 
Lou  vain,  5,  6,  75 

Maeterlinck,  M.,  7,  8 
Marches  et  Sonneries,   Derou- 

lede's,  150 

Margueritte,  M.  Paul,  47 
Meaux,  98-101 
Millerand,  M.  158 
"Minden,  Battle  of,"  in 
"  Mineurs      de      Newcastle," 

Barbier's,  195 
Moore,  Thomas,  133 
Moore,  Sir  John,  126 
Morier,  Sir  Robert,  102 
Mun,  Comte  de,  36,  66,  67 
Murray,  Professor  Gilbert,  109 

"  National  Independence  and 
Liberty,"      Wordsworth's 
sonnets  dedicated  to,  114 
Noailles,  Madame  de,  165 
Nouveaux    Chants    du    Soldat, 
Deroulede's,  150 

"  Ode  on  the  departing  Year," 

Coleridge's,  116 
"  Ode    on    Venice,"    Byron's, 

128 
"  Ode  to  Liberty,"  Shelley's, 

*34 

"  Ode  to  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte," Byron's,  128 

"  Ode  to  the  Assertors  of 
Liberty,"  Shelley's,  134 

Odcnt,  M.,  93 


Old  Mortality,  Scott's,  133 

Orchies,  103 

Ostwald,  Herr  Wilhelm,  214 

Paris,    desecration    of    Monu- 
ments, 1 02 

Paris,  Gaston,  22,  23 

Peguy,    Charles,    early    years 

and  character,  59-61 
Le  mystere  de  la  charite  de 

Jeanne  d'Arc,  61 
Les  Cahiers  de  la  Quinzaine, 
62 

Penrose,  T.,  in 

Poemes  de  France,  M.  Fort's, 
167 

Poet's    Pilgrimage,    Southey's, 
130 

Ponchon,  M.  Raoul,  165 

"  Prelude,"  Wordsworth's,  114 

Prudhomme,  Sully,  24,  29 

Reims,    outrages    perpetrated 

on,  74-85 

Renan,  Ernest,  45,  153 
Rethel,  104 

Revolt  of  Islam,  Shelley's,  134 
Revue  hebdomadaire,  52 
Rodin,  M.  Auguste,  82 
Rolland,  M.  Remain,  62 
Romaine     Mirmault,     M.     de 

Regnier's,  12 
"  Rosalie,"  Botrel's,  159 
Rostand,  M.  Edmond,  165 
"  Rule  Britannia,"  events  lead- 
ing to  composition  of,  no 

"  Saint  Cloud,"  Scott's,  131 
Sandeau,  Jules,  19 
Sarter,  Mme.,  84 
Scott,   Sir  Walter:  poems  on 
Napoleonic  wars,  125,  126, 

i3i»  133 

"Vision  of  Don  Roderick," 
126;  "Field  of  Water- 
loo," "Dance  of  Death," 
"Saint  Cloud,"  131;  Old 
Mortality,  133 


248 


Index 


Seaman,  Sir  Owen,  161 

Senlis,  outrages  perpetrated 
on,  92-96 

Shelley :  poems  on  Napoleonic 
wars,  133-136 

Soissons,  outrages  perpetrated 
on,  96-98 

"  Soldier's  Dream,"  Camp- 
bell's, 123 

Southey :  poems  on  Napoleonic 
wars,  1 1 8,  120,  127,  128, 

130.  131 

Staaf,  Hr.  Karl,  210 
Strindberg,  August,  220 
Sundbarg,  Dr.  G.,  232 
Swinburne,  16,  20,  124,  125 

Taine,  7 

Tharaud,  MM.,  145,  149,  154 
Thenard,  Mme.  H.  154 
"  Triumph  of  Life,"  Shelley's, 
135 


Vachon,  M.,  104 

"  Veillee  des  Saints  Patrons  de 

France,"  M.  Fort's,  169 
Verhaeren,    M.    Emile,    6,    8, 

185 

Verlaine,  26 
"  Vision    of    Don    Roderick," 

Scott's,  126 
Voix  d'lonie,  M.  Viele-Grifnn's, 

ii 
Voltaire,  42,  203 

Wallenberg,  Hr.  Knut,  210 
Waller,  Max,  8 

Wordsworth  :  poems  on  Napo- 
leonic wars,  113-120 

"  Ye    Mariners   of    England," 
Campbell's,  123 

Zamacois,  M.  Miguel,  160-162 
Zola,  Emile,  22 


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